Call to Arms
by IronSparrow99
Summary: All Eleanor Allen wants is to be normal. She wants to keep her job, she wants to stay out of jail, and she wants to catch her mother's murderer. Simple. But when Ellie wakes up from a mysterious coma to find that both she and her brother possess odd abilities, will she be able to defend the people she loves? Or will the darkness finally swallow Ellie, once and for all?
1. Life as I Knew It

My name is Ellie Allen, and I can safely say that I am normal – I always have been. It's just that lately, normal has become more of a relative term than the world would have you believe.

The world around us is changing, and whether or not you may be aware of the change, there is no stopping it. And as the proverb goes, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

And that's exactly what has been happening, even where you can't see it. As the world changes, so do the people living in it. There's a new kind of human emerging – actually, not a human. A meta-human. Just like any other human being, only with something…extra. Some might call it a superpower.

I'm one of the meta-humans. I work with a team of people like me to stop other meta-humans from destroying the world.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to start at the beginning.

My story starts on my very last day as a 'normal' human being.

And _that_ day started with the shrill ringing of my cell phone waking me from a peaceful sleep.

I roll over, blankets tangling around my legs as I groan into my pillow and blindly grope around for my phone, answering the call and balancing it against my ear. "'llo?"

" _Allen!"_ the man on the other end of the line snaps. _"Where are you?!"_

"What?" I pick my head up off the pillow. "Joe, I'm not supposed to be at work for another…" I glance over at my bedside clock, then do a double take. The glowing numbers read 10:46 am.

"I – shit. Did my alarm not go off? My alarm didn't go off. Shit. Goddamn it. Joe-"

" _Don't give me excuses, El,"_ Detective Joe West says with no small amount of impatience. _"Just get here, now. I've got cases waiting."_

"Yeah," I mutter blearily, kicking the blankets off and stumbling out of bed. "Yeah, okay, I'll be there in a minute."

" _Good."_ The line goes dead, and I set my phone down on top of my dresser. Quickly deciding that I didn't have time to shower, I grab my glasses and a change of clothes and quickly change, smoothing down my hair as I collected my bag and forensics kit on my way out the door.

I burst through the front doors of the Central City police station about fifteen minutes later and just barely miss running into one of the only people in this world who doesn't hate my guts.

"Barry!" I yelp, automatically grabbing his arm to steady us both before my brother drops one of the many boxes he's carrying. "Sorry, I didn't see you."

"I must've left my reflective vest at home." My twin brother, Barry Allen, offers me a small smile. "Wanna grab a box? I think they're putting you on the Delancey case – I bet Singh would _love_ you if you finally closed it up."

"I highly doubt that," I reply but take one of the boxes out of his arms anyway, following him up the stairs. "Speaking of Singh, did he give you grief when I didn't show up on time? I can go talk to him."

"Nah, I'm good," Barry denies, shaking his head. "Singh's just crabby. He's always crabby. I've gotten used to it by now."

"Yeah, well, he doesn't hate _you_."

"He doesn't hate _you_ either," my brother argues.

"Debatable." I smirk dryly as we enter the forensics lab, known around the precinct as the Allen Lab. I set the box of evidence down on my desk and reach around my computer to Barry's workstation and snatch the cup of coffee off his desk.

"Hey!" Barry yelps. "That's mine!"

I meet his eyes, take a large drink from the cup, and hold it out. "You want it back?"

"Ew, no." Barry makes a face as he signs for the evidence and begins to unpack the box. "You're gross, y'know that?"

"Ah, you know you love me," I tease as I boot up my computer.

Barry doesn't respond to that, and we soon fall into a familiar lull – keyboards clacking, machinery humming, and the occasional computer beep. I, for one, was alright with the silence, although to an outsider, it might have seemed a bit prickly.

See, Barry and I had a bit of an odd relationship – he was my brother, and I loved him, but in the search for our mother's killer, I had done some very, _very_ stupid things; things which had caused a massive fight between Barry and I when we were eighteen. We eventually patched things up, of course, given that we now worked within the same room, but there was always going to be an unbridgeable gap between the two of us.

I'd long since accepted that as a fact. I was a scientist, that was what I did best. There wasn't much I could do about it now.

"Ellie? El!"

I rip myself from my internal pity-party and blink at Barry, who was watching my expectantly.

And standing right next to him is Captain David Singh himself.

"Captain!" I yelp, sitting bolt upright and slamming my knee into the underside of my desk. "Ow. Damn it, that hurt."

"Ellie?" Barry prompts gently.

"What? Oh. Yeah. Cap'n." I look up and disguise my grimace as a smile. "Hiya."

"Hello, Ms. Allen," Singh sighs derisively and side-eyes me like one would a piece of dog crap before looking at Barry. "Mr. Allen, I need you and your _assistant_ to go over the evidence from the old Mardon brothers' cases."

"The Mardon brothers?" Barry asks skeptically. "Didn't they disappear or something? We never caught them. I – I mean, that's not to say that you can't do your job, Captain Singh, but that the police force-"

I clear my throat before Barry can climb any further into the hole he's dug for himself. "The Mardon cases are old. Is the evidence needed for court or something? Please, _please_ say it isn't for court. I hate court. It isn't for court, right?"

"It's not for court," Singh assures us with a slightly disturbed look. "We may have reason to believe the brothers have resurfaced. I need you to look through all the files and establish a pattern so we know what to look for this time."

"Aye, aye cap'n," I chirp, turning back to my computer and placing my hands on the keyboard before glancing over my shoulder. "Was that it?"

Singh just glares at me once more for good measure before nodding to Barry and sweeping out of the room.

"You know, I could talk to him if you want," Barry offers a few moments later, breaking the relative silence that had settled around us. "I mean, you don't deserve to be my assistant. You're just as smart as I am, you've worked twice as hard-"

"Only because I was fixing my own mistakes," I correct. "Barry, stop. I've told you before – nobody here is going to like me. You're the prodigal son of the department, not me, and I'm okay with playing second fiddle."

"Not you're not."

I look up from the box of evidence I'd been inspecting and find Barry's eyes boring into mine. I hold his gaze for a long, tense moment before he looks down, staring intently at the tabletop.

"Thank you," I whisper, returning to box. I slip on a pair of gloves and start pulling the evidence bags out and sorting them into piles: one for blood samples, one for other biological samples, one for fingerprints one for weapons, and one for everything else. "Come on, we've got some brothers to catch."

Barry wheels his chair over, pulls a pile of evidence a little closer, and the tension in the room beats a hasty retreat.

.

Evidence processing is always a slow, boring process, no matter how smart we were; it was known to take an hour or two on single cases, let alone years' worth of cases. The Mardon brothers – Mark and Clyde – had quite the rap sheet: bank robberies, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, and seven different kinds of assault. Their spree went back about five years, to just before Barry and I were hired; since then, we'd found a sort of pattern: the two would pop up with a handful of crimes every few months, and the crimes would escalate to a certain point before they suddenly stopped.

"My guess is they get scared," I speculate, leaning back in my chair. "I mean, look at it. They haven't gotten caught at all, but the reports say that they're getting closer and closer and then…they just disappear."

"They don't seem like the type," Barry disagrees. "I mean, look at all the blood." He motions at the disturbingly large amount of bloodstained knives, fabric, guns, and other miscellaneous items. "Do they seem squeamish to you?"

"Point," I grumble, rolling my eyes. I grab the slightly smaller pile of fingerprinted evidence and bringing it over to the scanner. "You wanna cross-reference my fingerprints with your blood? See if we can…"

"...match any cases, yeah," Barry agrees.

"Are you two finishing each other's sentences again?" a voice asks behind us, and I spin around to see Detective Joe West, who had been my saving grace for as long as I could remember, standing in the center of the lab.

"Because I thought you quit that years ago," he continues. "It's freaky."

"Old habits," I supply simply with a half-shrug. "Hey, at least we aren't talking in sync. That was even creepier."

"I liked it!" Barry protests. "It was cool!"

"Yeah," I huff. " _Come play with us, Danny. Forever…and ever…and ever…"_

"Okay, okay, I get it!" He holds up his hands in surrender and turns to Joe. "Did you come to rag on us or did you actually have something?"

"I do." Joe hands us each a file. "There was a robbery at a bank on 4th. Two people are dead and Singh wants you to take a look."

"Crime scene?" I ask hopefully. Call me perverse, but I liked getting my hands dirty – a day without blood or guts or a dead body of some sort was a slow day.

"Crime scene," Joe confirms, long-used to my antics. "Be in the car in five or you're walking."

I nod as he leaves the room, and Barry and I quickly set a few tests to run in our absence and gather our kits.

"Come on," I tell my brother as we leave the lab and hit the lights. "Time to go save the day, right?"

* * *

 **Hey guys! So this is my first foray into fanfic for the Arrowverse - tell me what you think. This story is also posted on Ao3 under the same name, and honestly like that site better, but I posted it here to try and get more exposure. All new content will be posted to Ao3 first, so check there if you want the newest stuff.**


	2. Lightning Struck

**Hey, guys, here's the next chapter - sorry it's late, my computer was refusing to connect to the Internet. Please tell me what you think, feedback is the fuel my brain needs!**

* * *

The crime scene was bloody, just as I'd hoped. Not as gory, because shootings were generally fairly clean affairs, but there were dead bodies, meaning that there was a veritable feast of evidence to get my hands on.

Joe's department-issued SUV squeals to a stop at the curb and Barry and I grab our gear and duck under the yellow tape. We quickly split the scene into parts – Barry would canvas the outside of the bank, while I got the inside, and we quickly split up with our individual cases.

"Please tell me no one disturbed the crime scene," I announce as I enter the bank lobby, immediately scanning the bloody corpse for details. "My job is hard enough as is without someone trampling on the corpse."

"Your precious body's fine, lab rat," one of the officers calls. "Should we leave you two alone for a moment? You need mood lighting?"

"If you've got it, sure, but I much prefer UV," I reply sarcastically. "And as for leaving me alone, yes, I'd greatly appreciate it if you did."

The small crowd of cops shuffles away from the corpse, leaving me about a five-foot radius in which to work. I kneel down next to the body and flip open my case, beginning by jotting down basic notes: height, weight, possible age and such.

Snapping on a pair of gloves, I quickly begin swabbing and bagging samples, making mental notes as I went.

A few minutes later, Joe walks into the bank and approaches the body. "Whatcha got, Ellie?"

"Male, between 50 and 65, five-foot, eleven inches tall," I rattle off. "Cause of death will be determined by the coroner, but my best guess is the bullet hole in his chest." I stand and pull my gloves off, grabbing my camera and beginning to take photos.

"Judging by the placement of the body and the lack of drag marks, I'd say he was huddled back near the wall," I continue, gesturing as I do so. "My best guess is that our shooter only shot this dude to make a point."

"As an example," Joe tacks on, and I nod.

"Right. Has anyone ID'd our shooter?"

"The teller gave a sketch," the detective offers, handing over a piece of paper with a sketch on it. "Looks a lot like Clyde Mardon, doesn't it?"

"That it does." I grin, scanning over the face in front of me for telling clues. There was a small scar on his chin – it didn't look like a deliberate wound, and I assumed that even criminals had to trip sometime.

"From what I've read from the other Mardon cases, they like to minimize deaths," I comment. "Not because they're squeamish, but because they're, like, scary efficient. Which might be why they haven't been caught yet. I mean, that's not to say you're bad at your job, Joe, I just meant that these particular criminals are smarter than your average criminal – which you _can_ catch, obviously, given that Iron Heights is-"

Joe silences me with a look, and I swallow my twisted tongue as I hand back the sketch and stuff my hands in my pockets. "Is Barry outside? With the other body?"

Joe nods slowly, still jotting down notes.

"Right," I huff anxiously, quickly packing my stuff away and hurrying outside. I follow the cops milling around the scene to the center of the activity: a side alley with a second corpse, over which my brother was crouched, examining something on the pavement. I mutter a greeting as I plop down next to him.

"Hey," he greets absently, studying some tire marks on the pavement. "Did you get anything big off the body inside?"

"He was shot as an example. Haven't gotten a name yet, but I took samples to bring back to the lab. I mainly left before I could inadvertently insult Joe even more," I murmur, scratching the back of my neck sheepishly.

"Rambling?" Barry asks.

"Rambling," I nod. "So, what've you got out here?"

"Tire treads," he responds, pointing out the skid marks on the pavement. "12 inches, asymmetrical tread."

"They were made by Mustang Shelby GT500," I announce. "They have an exclusive super-wide rear wheel."

Barry nods, and I can practically see the cogs turning in his head as he takes in the new information. Blinking, he refocuses on the skid marks and narrows his eyes. "What's that?"

"What's what?" I ask, leaning over to see what he was pointing at – there were flecks of something within the skid marks themselves.

"Can you get me a test tube or something?"

"Um…" I quickly open my kit and take inventory. "I used all mine. The best I can get you is an evidence bag."

"That'll have to do," Barry decides, and before I can protest, reaches down to swipe a gloved finger through the brown stuff – it looked soft, almost like clay.

Barry brings it up to his face and sniffs it. "Yep. Feces."

"Oh. _Wonderful._ " I pull a face – there were times I really didn't like my job, and this was one of those times. I much preferred studying ballistics and trajectories. Still, I hold the bag open, leaning slightly away from it as Barry carefully takes his entire glove off and drops it in.

"I hope you know that you'll be the one analyzing this," I inform him as I hold out the bag.

Barry nods and quickly packs the baggie away, shutting his case just as Joe rounds the corner. "Did you two find anything else?"

"We found a…crapload of evidence," I offer, lips twitching.

Barry elbows me in the ribs. "She means we found feces in the tire treads," he clarifies, sending a half-hearted glare my way. "We'll bring them – and everything else – back to the lab. We should have a lead by the end of the day."

"Good," Joe nods. "Let's head back, then. We need to get to work. Mardon cannot – _will_ not – be getting away this time."

* * *

Fifteen minutes after leaving the crime scene, I drag my case back into the lab, set it on a table, and Barry and I quickly head to our desk. I move both of our kits onto one of the lab tables and begin setting up the various machines I'd need. "Hey, before I forget, is the news saying anything about STAR Labs? I forgot to check this morning."

Barry doesn't respond, but even without looking up I can hear one of the monitors in the lab turn on to the news station we usually kept on.

"… _and we are less than five hours away from the moment we've all been waiting for: the activation of STAR Laboratory's particle accelerator,"_ the news reporter was saying. _"The event has been marketed as the greatest leap in scientific advancement since NASA's moon landing, and to many fans, the company truly does live up to its promise of delivering 'the science of tomorrow, today.'"_

"It's probably going to be better than the moon landing," I predict over the sound of the mass spectrometer running, and Barry hums in agreement.

" _However, not everyone is in agreement with these advancements,"_ the reporter continues, and I glance up to see the screen switch to a shot of protestors outside of STAR Labs holding signs that read 'DON'T TURN IT ON!'

I roll my eyes as I swap out one blood sample for the next, logging the results. "Plebeians," I mutter under my breath. "Just because they're afraid of progress doesn't mean everyone else has to be stuck in the Stone Age with them."

"It's going to turn on anyway," Barry points out, not even looking up from the microscope he was using to inspect one of the other samples we'd gotten. "Wells is going to go ahead with this, no matter what some picketers say."

"I know that," I acknowledge. "Still, humanity's resistance to progress annoys the hell out of me." I trail off as my computer dings, and I frown. "Huh."

"What is it?"

"Speaking of progress, I think I found a way to find out where Mardon is," I explain in a rush, sliding into my chair and quickly logging onto the CCPD system. "The Shelby – assuming that was the getaway car – has a top speed of 170 miles per hour. If I access the bank security cameras, then we can tell when they left the scene, and we can find out how far, hypothetically, they could have gotten thus far."

"Which would narrow down the search field and mean that Joe and Chyre could find him quicker," Barry adds.

"Right," I nod, accessing the camera footage that had been subpoenaed from the bank immediately following the crime. I fast-forward to when the bank's silent alarm had gone off – around 12:30 – and hit 'play',

I sit back and watch the screen, keeping my eyes locked on Mardon as he goes through Committing a Robbery 101 – threatening the teller and forcing the crowd back takes about five minutes, making his demands and doing the usual Villainous Monologuing took around fifteen; leaving the bank, confronting the security guards, and shooting another man takes another seven. Finally, at exactly 1:08 p.m., Clyde Mardon leaves the scene, speeding off the frame and leaving nothing but skid marks.

"Yes!" I shout excitedly. "Okay, so it is now…1:55. That gives us a window of 47 minutes, and if distance equals speed times time then we have a radius of…" I scribble down a few calculations on a spare piece of paper. "133.1667 miles."

Barry turns to his own computer and pulls up a map of Central City, drawing a radius with the bank as the center point. "That's nearly all of the city."

" _Nearly,"_ I emphasize. "And if we're basing this off their previous sprees, they've stayed in the city, at least for now, so we can eliminate a few parts…" I cross out the places where the radius spills over the city limits.

"That's still a lot of area," Barry points out grimly.

"I know." I sigh frustratedly and lean back against my desk. "That can't be it. Like Joe said, Mardon can't get away this time."

"He won't," Barry assures me, his voice perfectly confident. "We're smarter than him. We're going to find him."

"Than what do you suggest? 'Cause I'm all out of ideas," I snap, annoyed, as I cross my arms and curl my hands into fists.

Barry just stares at the map for a long, tense moment, and I'm just about to sit back down when he asks, "If you were a murderous bank robber, where would hide?"

"What?" I reel back. "Why me? Why not you?"

"Because out of the two of us, you're the most likely to go on a killing spree," he tells me in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Thanks," I drawl, but uncurl my fists and tap my fingers against my arm, focusing on the matter at hand. "Well...if I'd just committed the same crime that our pal Clyde did, then I'd probably go somewhere...rural. Edge of town. Police are going to be swarming the city within an hour of the robbery itself, so if I wanted to stay within the city, I'd head for an area with little to no police officers."

"Like a farm?" Barry asks, a familiar glint in his eyes.

"Yes…" I respond cautiously. "Why?"

"Remember the feces I collected?"

"I couldn't forget it if I tried."

"It wasn't human," he explained excitedly. "My best guess is cow. And if was in the treads of the car – which the Mardons probably brought to the scene - then analyzing the sample…"

"...should lead us back to where the car came from," I finish, a smile spreading across my face. "Great. How long should that take?"

Barry walks over to the spectrometer and inserts the sample, pressing a few buttons before looking back up at me, his mouth pressed into a flat line. "Three hours."

"Wonderful," I groan for the second time in as many hours, my spirits falling as I plop down into my chair.

* * *

Here's a piece of advice about science that they don't tell you in high school or college or any other classes anywhere: science can be boring as _shit._ Sure, collecting information and connecting puzzle pieces was amazing, yes, but sitting around waiting for collected evidence to be run through a machine? Easily the most boring thing I'd ever had to do.

Three hours after Barry started the analysis of the feces, the lab was nearly dead; Barry and I had completed profiles on both of the victims and run them downstairs, letting the detectives get started on tracking down the grieving families. However, that meant that we had nothing else to do – all of the samples from the previous Mardon cases had been wrapped up, and the current case had taken precedence all morning. All of this simply lead to one conclusion: I. Was. So. _Goddamn._ Bored.

I was just beginning my 43rd attempt at solving the 5x5 Rubix Cube I kept on my desk when the monotony was broken by a familiar face walking through the door.

"Iris!" I jump out of my chair, setting the Cube down and hugging Iris West, my best friend and sister in all but blood. "You have _no idea_ how glad I am to see you."

"What, is life too boring without me?" she teases, hitching a hip up onto the corner of my desk.

"Absolutely," I deadpan, lips twitching. "I've been running tests on literal crap all morning."

"Sucks to be you," she sing-songs with a laugh. "Aren't you supposed to be used to it by now?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" I sigh dramatically, then shake my head. "In all seriousness, there was a shooting earlier and we're still waiting on the results, which means we might not be able to make it to the demonstration."

"Aw, that sucks," Iris pouts. "When will you know one way or the other?"

I glance at the clock. "Right about…now." As if on cue, Barry's computer beeps, a message popping up on the screen. "Barry, you wanna get that?"

No response.

"Barry? Barry!" I shout, snapping my fingers in front of my brother's face. Barry quickly tears his gaze away from Iris, whom he'd definitely _not_ been staring at like a lovesick puppy.

"Sorry, what?"

"Your computer?" I prompt, pointing at the machine behind him. "D'you wanna see what the poop has to tell us?"

"Uh, sure. Iris, you look…amazing," Barry stammers as he turns to the computer. I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

Iris, however, remains completely oblivious as she scoffs. "Yeah, right. I literally just threw this on because the new guy spilled coffee all over me."

"Don't discredit yourself." I move around my desk to Barry's side, standing on my tip-toes to peer over his shoulder. "Is that the molecular breakdown? What's the second-to-last one? It seems familiar."

"It's oxytetracycline," Barry informs me. "An antibiotic used in chicken and cow feed to fight off infections."

"The farm we're looking for used it in their feed," I realize. "We can use feed distribution centers to trace feed that both uses OXT _and_ goes to Central City."

Barry nods and gets to work, fingers flying over the keyboard as he tracks down major distribution centers in the area.

"Do I need to leave you two alone?" Iris asks from behind me, sounding half-serious. "I can come back later."

"No, stay," I call over my shoulder. "We're almost done." Turning back to the monitor, I ask, "Does that narrow it down any?"

"Let's find out." He presses a key and the list of feed orders going to Central City is condensed to only four, all of which have oxytetracycline highlighted in the ingredients list. "I'd say it does."

"Right?" I smirk. "Gotcha, Mardon." I quickly write down the names and addresses of the four farms and move back to my desk, grabbing my bag. "Now we just run this downstairs to Joe and we should be off the hook."

"And free to go to the demonstration at STAR Labs," Barry interjects eagerly. "We might even get to see the particle accelerator turn on!"

I grin, but Iris just looks vaguely exasperated. "What's so important about the particle accelerator, anyway?"

"It's going to exponentially expand the collective knowledge of the human race," I enthuse as we make our way out of the lab. "It's like…like an iceberg," I explain. "Imagine the tip of the iceberg – that's what we know about molecular science _right now_." I pause to see Iris nodding along with the analogy.

"And then the rest of the iceberg – the submerged part – is what we haven't learned yet. It's what the particle accelerator will be able to show us," I explain, bouncing down the last two steps and onto the main floor of the precinct.

"Sounds…enlightening," Iris offers.

I just grin and approach Joe's desk, where the detective himself was pouring over security camera footage from the bank.

"We've got a lead on Mardon," I announce, dropping the paper on the desk. "The fecal matter we recovered from the scene belong to a cow that had ingested OXT, or oxytetracycline."

"And that is a list of all the farms in Central City that still use oxytetracycline in their feed," Barry continues. "I'll bet you'll find a sweet Shelby at one of them."

Joe laughs and shakes his head. "You two never cease to amaze me, you know that?"

"Well, Dad," Iris pipes up, leaning against the desk, "now that Barry and Ellie have done your poop science, you think you can let them go to STAR Labs?"

Joe opens his mouth as if to protest, but then he catches sight of the triple-doe-eye Barry, Iris and I were throwing his way. He'd never been able to resist it.

"Fine," he sighs, admitting defeat. "Go."

"Yes!" I whoop, darting forward to give Joe and quick hug before taking off out the door. "Come on, come on, come _on!"_

"Slow down," Barry chuckles, follow me outside and holding the door for Iris. "It's not a race."

"Yeah, but I'll get a better view of the podium," I taunt, hurrying down the sidewalk. "Come on!"

* * *

STAR Labs – or Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories – was located in the middle of downtown Central City, its skyscraper dominating the skyline. It could be counted on to be busy on any given day, but that was nothing compared to crowd that had gathered around the building tonight.

The building was buzzing with activity; citizens, scientists, security guards and the press were all milling around in the main lobby, but the three of us manage to fight our way through the crowd just as Dr. Harrison Wells, head of STAR Labs, steps up to the podium.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he greets as the crowd quiets down. "I wanted to thank each and every one of you for choosing to come out tonight to witness this wonderful advancement to the scientific world."

The crowd cheers and Wells waits for everyone to quiet down again before continuing.

"It has always been the dream of those of us at STAR Labs to bring the common people advancements in science and technology that no one would ever see possible," he announces. "The particle accelerator is a shining example of this idea – it will change the way we think about physics, medicine, and power itself. It will bring about the future of the world – and, trust me, the future will be here faster than you think."

The room erupts into deafening applause, cameras flashing all over the room. I look over at Barry to see him clapping along like the rest of the room, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes and every once in a while he'd shoot Iris a forlorn glance.

I knew that look – that look meant Barry had tried to tell Iris how he felt, again, and he'd been turned away…again.

I sigh reach over to squeeze his arm. When he looks over at me, I raise an eyebrow in a silent question, not wanting to shout over the crowd. Barry blinks, nods, and gives me a genuine smile, returning the squeeze in an assurance that he was alright.

Letting the matter drop, I turn back to the podium, where Dr. Wells was now answering questions, just as a shout comes from the front of the crowd and a man bursts out of the crowd, running past the three of us and snatching Iris' bag as he does so.

"My laptop!" she shouts. "It's got my dissertation!"

Barry, in all his noble stupidity, takes off after the thief, shoving his way through the crowd. I turn to Iris and make sure she was okay before taking off in pursuit, not even sure what I was going to do if I caught the guy.

I needn't have worried, however – I round a corner in the parking lot and nearly run into Barry, who was leaning against a wall, short of breath. I skid to a stop by his side, panting and bracing my hands on my knees.

"You okay?" I ask worriedly. "Are you having an asthma attack again? Where'd the guy go?"

Barry sucks in a deep breath, shakes his head to signify that no, he was fine, and points down the alleyway.

I straighten up and get ready to chase after the thief, given that he wasn't long gone by now, when another voice stops me in my tracks.

"Police! Freeze, unless you wanna find out what a bullet feels like."

 _Good,_ a little voice in my head whispers. _Let the cop handle this. It's his job, not yours._

"Yeah," I huff. I lean back against the wall, willing my heart to stop pounding. Between Barry and I, I knew that I had a slightly better chance of catching anyone on foot, but neither of us were particularly athletic.

My thoughts are cut off by Iris making her way around the corner. "Ellie! Are you okay? Did you catch the guy?"

"He's over there with a cop." I point to the end of the alley. Iris leaves, and I turn to my brother. "Can we go home now?"

"I might've left my jacket at work," Barry admits sheepishly. "And it looks like it's gonna rain, so…"

"…so back to work it is," I surmise, pushing off the wall. "Alright, c'mon."

Barry nods and follows me out.

Just as we were leaving STAR Labs, raindrops begin to fall, true to Barry's word, and by the time we reach the CCPD it's progressed to a full-on torrential downpour.

I duck inside the building with Barry hot on my heels. I shake my hair out like a dog, waving to the night shift security guards as we make our way up to the lab.

I unlock the door to find about an inch of water on the floor. "Goddamn it, Barry, did you leave the skylight open again?"

"I didn't know it was going to rain!" he protests, slogging through the water to make sure his computer was okay as I do the same.

"The janitor's going to kill us," I mutter as I put my computer through safe shutdown procedures. "Come on, grab your jacket and let's go. I want to actually get some sleep tonight."

"Yeah, lemme just close this," he mutters, grabbing onto the chain that would close the skylight. Overhead, thunder roars, and I suddenly get the feeling that something bad was coming.

I move towards Barry, placing a hand on his back. "Barry, we should-"

I'm interrupted for the second time that night by a deafening roar that seems to come from just above our heads. The air around us suddenly seems charged and the smell of ozone burns my nostrils as a blinding flash of light erupts within the room, sending me flying back across the room.

The last thing I'm aware of is an explosion of pain in my head just before the world sinks into an everlasting blackness.


	3. New Faces & New Places

For what might have been forever, I remember only vague things.

My world was reduced to an endless sea of black, penetrated only by excruciating bursts of pain and snippets of frantic sound.

" _-we're losing her!"_

" _-don't know how she's still alive-"_

" _-brain activity is off the charts-"_

" _She's seizing! I need a doctor here-"_

I was surrounded by the oddest feeling in the world; it was like I was alive and existed and didn't at the same time. Looking back, I'd imagine that's what an unborn baby feels like – surrounded by darkness, not knowing where you are and having no clue that your world is about to reshape itself like a block of wet clay.

(I now understood why the first thing babies did was cry – it was out of fear of having everything they'd ever known ripped away in the blink of an eye.)

Speaking of the world, mine pieced itself back together slowly.

My first thought beyond the darkness was _I can't breathe,_ quickly followed by _oh my god, am I dead? I'm probably dead. I don't want to be dead!_

"Oh my god, she's awake!"

 _Wait – no – who is that? Are they dead too?_

"Just calm down, please, stop struggling-"

 _I can't, I still can't breathe, I don't know who you are-_

"Cisco, get me the extubation equipment and find Dr. Wells!"

 _Oh my god more people, I don't know who you are – where am I? Did I get kidnapped?! Oh my god-_

"Ellie, calm down or I'll have to sedate you again!"

 _Wait,_ I blink dumbly. _Who are you, and how do you know my name?_

"Calm down," the voice repeats soothingly. "You're alright, I promise. Just calm down and we'll get the intubation tube out of your throat."

Still vaguely confused, I slowly open my eyes and a face swims into focus. It was a girl with auburn hair and soft brown eyes – she was wearing a lab coat and was watching me with a studious expression.

"We had to intubate you because you weren't breathing on your own," she explains, moving around what I now realized was a hospital bed – was I in the hospital? How did I get here? – and checking various monitors. "Your vitals look good. Your heart rate is a bit high, but that could just be the shock – it must be a shock for you, I mean, it's been quite a while…"

Growing more confused by the second, I try and ask what she meant – or maybe who she was in the first place – but all that escapes my lips is a strangled little wheeze.

"Don't try and talk," the girl – a doctor or nurse, I was assuming – warns. "Your vocal cords may be atrophied – Cisco, where is that equipment!"

I rear back as much as I could at the sudden change in tone, but before I can do anything else a cart rattled into the room, pushed by a tan-skinned guy with long dark hair.

"I'm here, I'm here," he replies. "Hey, she's awake! How you doin'?"

I just give him a vaguely scared look – I had no clue who this guy was. I had no clue where I was. I had no clue where _Barry_ was-

 _Barry._

A second wave of panic crashes over me as I realize that I had no clue where my brother was, or if he was even alive. I remembered the flash of light, my hand on his back, but nothing after that. Where was Barry now?

I look up at the woman that was preparing her equipment and begin to ask a question, but before I can, she sets to work. After some slight preparations, she turns to me with gloved hands.

"I'm going to pull out the intubation tube now, okay? This may be uncomfortable."

Unable to nod, I can only blink a few times before she begins to slowly pull on the tube.

The intubation tube climbs out of my throat with a sickening squelching sound, leaving me able to breathe but almost unable to speak.

"Here," the doctor offers, holding out a cup. "Ice chips. I'm not sure how you'd handle liquids right now."

I nod and take a chip with a shaking hand, balancing it on my tongue where it quickly melts. After two more ice chips, my tongue is finally loose enough to speak.

"Who are – I don't – will someone explain what is going on?" I croak, surprised at the sound of my own voice – it was rough and gravely, deeper than it had even been.

"You're at STAR Labs," the doctor explains. "My name is Dr. Caitlin Snow, and over there is Cisco Ramon, mechanical engineer. We've been taking care of you for the past few months."

"What about Barry?" I ask hoarsely. "Where's my brother?"

"Barry? He's just in the other room-"

"I need to see him," I rasp, the panicked feeling not fading from my chest. "Please. I need to know he's okay."

The doctor – Dr. Snow – hesitates for a moment, glancing back at her counterpart for a moment before slowly nodding and excusing herself from the room, which left me and Mr. Ramon awkwardly staring at one another until I clear my throat.

"Mr. Ramon-"

"Dude, it's Cisco," he interrupts me quickly. "You can call me Cisco. I've stalked your Facebook page, I think we can be on a first-name basis with each other."

"You've…stalked…my Facebook page?" I ask haltingly. "I – why?"

"Well, it's been a few months," he explains awkwardly. "I just didn't want it to be creepy when you woke up. Did you really go to MIT? 'Cause that's awesome."

I don't answer, stunned into silence. After a moment, however, the silence is broken by the sound of movement by the door and I turn to see the most familiar face in the world.

"Barry," I croak, voice breaking. Dr. Snow wheels Barry over – he was in a wheelchair, a fact which didn't help my panic much at all – to the side of my hospital bed. I lean down, mindful of the IV sticking out of my arm, and wrap my brother in as tight a hug as I dared. "Barry…"

"It's okay," he murmurs in a voice just as hoarse as mine, meaning he'd been under intubation too. "I'm okay."

I let out a relieved sigh as the panic finally ebbs from my system. "Are you sure? Why are you in a wheelchair?"

"I feel fine," he shrugs, "but she insisted." He points at Dr. Snow, who doesn't look the least bit apologetic.

"Well, I find it best to air on the side of caution, Mr. Allen," a new voice speaks up, and I look up, blink, and do a double take.

Standing – er, sitting? – in the doorway was none other than Harrison Wells…except in a wheelchair.

There were a million things I could've said in that moment. I could've gone with "It's an honor to meet you, sir," or maybe, "Can you please explain what's going on?" or even a simple, "Dr. Wells."

Instead, what spills out of my mouth is, "I _swear_ you could walk the last time I saw you." Immediately following that, I wince, heat rising to my cheeks. _Foot, meet mouth._

Dr. Snow pauses in securing a blood pressure cuff around my arm. "Has your brain been affected at all? Do I need to run more EKG scans?"

"No, she's always like this," Barry jokes from beside me. I give him a weak glare, but not much else – the shock of everything hadn't quite faded yet, even though I didn't know what 'everything' was yet.

Luckily for me, Dr. Wells doesn't seem fazed by my brazen comment, and Barry lifts his head to address the man head-on.

"What happened? How did we get here?"

"What do you remember?" Wells asks curiously, wheeling himself further into the room.

"We were at the expo for the particle accelerator," Barry offers, shifting in his seat. "I forgot my jacket at work, so we headed back in."

"It was raining," I add.

"Right," Barry agrees. "I remember trying to close the skylight, and then there was an explosion-"

"There was?"

"Yeah…" Barry gives me a confused look. "You didn't see it?"

I cast my mind back to the night in question before frowning. "I think I _heard_ it," I announce. "But then there was just a huge flash of light and it was like everything just went…boom," I finish lamely.

"An apt description, Ms. Allen," Wells says wryly. "That explosion was the particle accelerator – and my life's work – going up in flames."

"Oh…" I gape. "What – what happened?"

"The accelerator became unstable," Dr. Snow explains quietly. "It was unable to handle the stress and exploded, releasing a wave of quantum energy into the sky."

"That energy then formed a thundercloud," Wells continues, "which then formed a lightning bolt…"

"…which struck us," I finish. "So, wait. You're telling me that not only did we get struck by lightning – which is crazy in and of itself – but we got struck by _radioactive_ lightning?"

Wells hesitates slightly before answering. "Not exactly, but in basic terms, yes."

"Great," I sigh, glancing over at Dr. Snow. "Are there any side-effects? Am I gonna shoot lasers out of my eyes or something?"

"There doesn't seem to be anything…abnormal," she explains hesitantly. "Your vitals both seem fine…in fact, they're almost _too_ fine."

"What do you mean?" I ask anxiously.

"It's nothing," she quickly backpedals. "It's just that…after all these months, you shouldn't be able to sit up, let alone feel up to walking around." She seems to direct that last part more at Barry than me. "But other than your oddly good vitals, nothing abnormal seems to be happening."

"So we can go?" Barry asks eagerly.

"Not so fast," Wells admonishes. "You've been in a coma for nine months."

The world seems to stop turning as I focus entirely on Wells as his words begin to sink in.

"A…a coma?" Barry sputters.

"For _how long?!_ " I yelp. "My friends, my family…do I still have a job? Or – or an apartment? Shit, my lease is probably up by now," I babble. "I'm gonna have to move, and I'll probably need a new job, and-"

I'm stopped by someone giving my hand a gentle squeeze, and I look over to see Barry giving me a worried look. "We'll figure it out, okay?"

"Detective West and his daughter have been very consistent over these past few months," Wells offers. "And I think you'll find they have kept your affairs in order. They seem like special people."

"Iris visited a lot," Cisco informs us. "And she's hot."

I whip my head around to glare daggers at the engineer. "Watch it."

Cisco quickly backs up, raising his hands in surrender. I turn back to Wells, another question coming to mind.

"Do they know we're awake?"

"Not yet," Dr. Snow tells us regretfully. "We didn't want to overwhelm either of you, and I didn't know if you'd have any further problems as far as the coma went. But they've been alerted now and should be on their way any moment now."

I nod, and then pause to glance at Barry – both of us were still dressed only in hospital gowns. "Er, can we get dressed now?"

"Of course." Wells nods. "Cisco, would you please get some clothes for our guests? And Caitlin, if you could assist Ms. Allen if she needs your help?"

"I don't need help," I argue just as Caitlin agrees and leaves the room, returning a moment later with a wheelchair and a bundle of clothes.

"Don't be stupid," she scolds me. "You just woke up from a coma half an hour ago. You are in no shape to be up and running around."

I narrow my eyes at her, but she only does the same in return – after a brief staring match, I concede with a grumble and allow her to carefully unhook all of the monitors and IVs. Dr. Snow then sidles the wheelchair up to the bed, carefully helping me transition from one to the next.

"Do you need my help in the bathroom?" Dr. Snow asks with the grave seriousness that only a doctor can use.

"Er, no." I shake my head frantically. "I can manage, Doctor-"

"Call me Caitlin," she requests, and I nod just as she pulls me to a stop in front of the bathroom.

"Are you sure you don't need help?"

"I'm fine," I grunt, pushing myself up and out of the wheelchair, bracing myself on shaky legs. They may not be atrophied, but they were sorely unused over the past few months. Still, I use the wall to ease myself up and grab the door to the bathroom, taking the clothes from Dr. Snow – Caitlin – and stepping into the bathroom.

Once the door is locked, I quickly shed the paper-thin hospital gown, stretching out my stiff limbs as I move around. As I turn to grab the clothes Caitlin had given me, I catch a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror across from the sink and stop.

If what Caitlin said was true, I was supposed to be a sack of bones right now – atrophied muscles instantly made one scrawny as can be.

That wasn't what happened at all – the body in the mirror didn't even look like mine. It had little to no trace of fat; I didn't exactly have bulging abs, but it was almost as if every trace of nonessential fat had disappeared, giving me curves around my waist and hips and a flat stomach.

I don't think normal comas were supposed to do that.

Quickly shaving my head, I pull on the STAR Labs sweatpants and t-shirt that I had been provided with, leaning over the sink to splash my face with cold water. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about this entire situation – I was no doctor, but I didn't think coma patients just suddenly woke up without any warning, like Barry and I did. And I _knew_ , for a fact, that muscles that didn't get used for nearly a year wouldn't be able to support my weight – but here I was, standing on my own two feet.

And there was still something that felt a little off with the world – something that told me that the girl that went into that coma would not be the same girl that came out.

Turning off the faucet, I dry off my face and look up into the mirror over the sink…and then nearly fall backwards, tightly gripping the edge of the sink to stay upright.

My eyes…were glowing. They were glowing _silver_ , actually, which made it all the creepier since my eyes were usually green. As I stare at my own reflection in shock, a tingling sensation creeps over my skin, feeling almost like an electrical current running just under my skin. For a moment, the air in the bathroom seems almost heavy, for lack of a better word, and chills race up and down my spine.

And then I blink, and the moment is over. My eyes revert to their usual, everyday, non-glowy hazel-green; the tingling sensation quickly fades from my skin, and the bathroom is still empty, save for me staring intently into the mirror.

"That did not just happen," I whisper to my reflection.

"Whatever that was, it _did not_ just happen."


	4. Stepping Into the Sunlight

After my eyes returned to normal and my little episode – whatever it was – passed, I quickly leave the bathroom, insisting that "I really don't need the wheelchair, Caitlin."

"You just woke up from a coma half an hour ago!" she protests, dutifully following me as I hobble down the hall to the room where I'd woken up. "You really shouldn't be walking…"

"But I am," I remind her. "I don't know why, but I'm walking, and if I stay in that wheelchair for much longer my legs are going to stiffen up like icicles."

That makes her visibly hesitate. "I…that wouldn't be good…"

"Right. So, here's what I suggest – you let me walk, and I make sure Barry doesn't go running off to do anything stupid."

Something odd flits over Caitlin's face, but I blink and it's gone; Caitlin just quietly lets me keep a slow pace down the hallway, hovering behind me with the wheelchair at the ready, just in case.

And that's a good thing, too, because just as I step foot into the main room, I'm almost bowled over by a bone-crushing hug.

"Ellie – oh my god, El-"

"Iris," I greet cheerfully, expecting to see her smiling during our little reunion – only, her shoulders were shaking, and I didn't think it was out of laughter. "Iris? Hey, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?!" she nearly shrieks, pulling back to look me in the eyes. "What's _wrong_ is that you - you were brain dead, Ellie! You _died!_ "

"I – what?" I give her a confused look, glancing down at myself as if confirm that, yep, I was still breathing. I look past Iris at Joe, who seemed hesitant to take his eyes off Barry for even a second. "Joe?"

"It's true," he nods slowly, and I suddenly notice how much older he looked. "Your brain activity…the EEG machine was flatlining. Barry, you just kept flatlining – and _both_ of you had horrible seizures," Joe recounts quietly. "It's a miracle you're both alive."

"Actually, no," Wells interrupts succinctly, and I whirl around to face him, a million questions on my tongue. "Take a seat, all of you, and I can explain everything."

I nod, but before anyone can move, Joe's phone begins to ring and the detective answers it with a tired sigh. He listens for a moment, nods, grunts, and then hangs up with another, heavier sigh.

"Singh wants me at work," he explains. "But I can tell him I'm busy if you'd rather I stay…"

I shake my head. "No, Joe, go. Tell Singh I – we," I correct at Barry's protest, "said hi, and go catch the bad guys. We'll be fine."

"If you're sure…"

"We're sure," Barry backs me up. "Promise. And we'll call if something goes wrong."

Joe hesitates for a moment, glancing between Barry and I before he nods and pulls us both into a tight hug. "You have no idea how hard these nine months were."

"I'm sure," I mutter into his shoulder. Joe presses a kiss into my hair and then lets us go, nodding at Wells, Caitlin, and Cisco as he leaves the room.

"Miss West," Dr. Wells prompts as soon as has gone. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"I – no," she squeaks. "I mean, I have work, but…"

"Go," Barry urges gently. "We'll be fine, I promise. Besides, it's not like we'll die if you take your eyes off us," he jokes, but a shadow falls over Iris' face – that was exactly what she was afraid of, I realize with a start.

"Seriously, Iris," I interject. "Go to work. We'll be fine – the doctors are just being paranoid." I steadily ignore Caitlin's noise of protest. "And we'll call you when we're done."

Iris hesitates, but I give her a small smile and she concedes and grabs her bag, giving Barry and I each another hug – and Barry gets a cheek kiss, his blush was a sight to behold – before leaving.

Once the door closes after her, I swivel around to face Dr. Wells. "What was so important that everyone had to leave?"

Wells arches an eyebrow. "Did you want everyone else here for this discussion?"

"I…" I falter and fall silent, remembering the pain in Iris' voice at even the _memory_ of Barry and I dying. To actually discuss it would probably be an all-new kind of hell for her. "No."

Wells nods sharply and turns his chair, wheeling out of the room and down a hallway. "Follow me, please."

I flick my eyes over to Barry – who looked just as confused as I felt, so that was good – and shrug before following Wells.

"So, Dr. Wells," I begin once we've caught up with him, "to be perfectly blunt, how am I not dead?"

"Because you were never dead in the first place, Ms. Allen," he explains. "Neither were you, Mr. Allen. Neither of you was ever medically dead."

"But…I flatlined," Barry says, confused. "Joe said I flatlined more than once. I mean, maybe the hospital has the equipment to revive me once, but more than once? I'm not that lucky."

"And speaking of hospitals, why aren't we in one?" I ask, peering into rooms as we walk past them.

"One question at a time, please," Wells requests, not looking at us as we continue through the hallways. "For the first matter – as I said before, you. Never. Flatlined. Your heart, Barry, never stopped – instead, it was going too fast for the monitor to register."

Barry, despite his considerable knowledge of the scientific field, can only gape and reply with, "Huh?"

I don't say anything; instead, I reach two fingers up and press them against the side of Barry's neck, feeling for his pulse point.

Wells was right – instead of the usual _ba-bump, ba-bump,_ what I felt was more of a _bumpbumpbumpbump._

"Holy shit," I whisper, dropping my hand. "Wells, what…"

"You see, don't you, Ms. Allen?" Wells murmurs, his face twisting into a triumphant smirk. "Why the hospital couldn't keep you?"

"My brain waves…were they doing the same thing?" I ask, slowing to a stop in the middle of the hallway. "Joe said the EEG machine was flatlining."

"Not for the same reasons, though," Wells argues. "Your brain waves, Ellie, are not any quicker than mine – they're simply stronger."

This time it was my turn to mutter an unintelligent response somewhere along the lines of, "What?"

"All will be explained in due time," Wells assures me.

"Dr. Wells-" I begin, irritated, but Wells cuts me short with a shake of his head as we emerge into a large room.

"This is a new world for all of us," he explains. "The particle accelerator changed the world as we know it – for the better or the worse has yet to be seen. The change did not stop at the two of you."

Wells wheels himself closer to the railing, and Barry and I follow him over. I lean against the railing and look down – below us was a crater of destruction, filled with blacked rubble and debris. I could spot pieces of twisted metal and ash. Whatever happened here, it had been powerful enough to bend an I-beam like a soft pretzel.

"How close was this to the explosion?" I ask quietly, leaning heavily on the railing.

"Just above it."

"How many people got hurt?" Barry asks from Wells' other side.

"Several," Wells sighs. "Employees of mine, citizens of the city…it's what landed me in this wheelchair," he reveals, motioning at his legs.

"Oh…" Barry murmurs quietly. "I'm sorry."

"I was recovering myself when I heard about the two of you," he explains. "A man who kept giving the hospital blackouts every time he went into cardiac arrest and a woman who was caught in a near-fatal cycle of extreme epileptic seizures. The hospital was sorely unequipped to handle one of you, let alone both – so I got Detective West to transfer you into my care."

"I would've thought you had better things to do than take on two mysteriously-comatose average CSIs," I joke weakly.

"STAR Labs isn't exactly popular among the community." Wells' face twists into a slight smirk before he sighs, slumping slightly in his chair. "We've been shut down since FEMA classified us as a class-four hazardous location. A majority of my employees quit. I accomplished my life's dream, and then it was gone…in a flash. The two of you were my only hope."

"I don't understand," Barry objects. "You sound like we're some kind of miracle or something, but we aren't."

"At the moment, nobody knows what you are or are not," Wells declares, turning around and moving away from the railing and back the way we came. "The two of you were the only ones struck that night, and you have come out the other side of that accident not only good but _better_. You do not understand how many mysteries you can unlock."

Silence yawns between our party of three for a long time before I shake my head and raise a hand to rub at my eyes until spots bloom behind my eyelids. "Yeah, okay. Look, before we start 'unlocking mysteries' and shit, I need sleep. Can I go home? No, wait, never mind. I'm going home anyway. Where's my stuff?"

I fully expected Dr. Wells to throw a fit, to demand I stay and undergo more tests, but he just nods with an understanding look and wheels off down a side hallway, returning just a few minutes later with a STAR Labs duffel bag.

"Here you go. Everything that was recovered from your lab when they found you."

I internally wince at the reminder of the lab – and therefore the job that I may or may not still hold – but quickly push it down as I sling the bag over my shoulder. "Thank you, Dr. Wells, and if you could be so kind as to point me to the elevator, I'll see you…soon."

Five minutes later, I step out of STAR Labs for the first time in nine months. The sun is shining, there are birds chirping, a gentle breeze was playing with my hair – I could almost pretend, for a quick moment, like nothing had happened. Like no time had passed.

 _Yeah, right,_ a sardonic little voice in my head whispers, _and next thing you know, pigs will be joining the Air Force._

I shake my head to clear it, steadfastly ignoring how the leaves were now amber and gold instead of green and the air was colder than I remembered.

One thing that hadn't changed was Central City itself, and I quickly navigate the streets of downtown until I'm within sight of a familiar apartment building.

A quick word about my apartment before you see it: it's an absolute craphole, and I'm not afraid to admit that.

Joe had described it as a "rat hovel with human accommodations" when I first moved in. That much was true, actually – it did have its fair share of pest problems, along with paper-thin walls and upstairs neighbors that always had really loud sex at 3 am.

I didn't have much – a tiny little kitchen, a living room with a decent TV and a sucky couch, a bedroom with an odd stain on the ceiling and a bathroom that always smelled a little like mold.

Joe had tried to convince me to move out countless times over the past few years, but this apartment had one thing no other place did: it was mine. This apartment had belonged to a lonely 21-year-old that had no clue what she was doing and everything to prove.

I'd gotten my life together since then, of course, but I kept the apartment anyway.

A quick last-minute phone call to Joe revealed that he'd kept the lease up while I was…asleep, doing the same for Barry's place, which was about a block and a half away. According to Joe, my keys counted as 'personal effects', so I easily dig them out of my bag as I approach the door to my ground-floor unit.

I push the door open and then kick it closed, trudging a few steps inside and dropping my bag on the couch, following it soon after and wincing as the couch shrieks in protest.

"Home, sweet home," I announce to the empty apartment, flopping back so that my head was resting on the arm of the couch. Oddly enough, even after being in a coma for what felt like forever, I was exhausted, and it doesn't take very long for sleep to sink its claws into me.


	5. A New Normal

Getting back to normal is a slow process. It involves a lot of baby steps, formerly inconsequential things that were now instrumental in getting my proverbial footing back.

The day after Barry and I woke up, I went grocery shopping and refilled my fridge. I gave my apartment a deep cleaning, the likes of which it had never seen before and will probably never see again. I reorganized everything I could, from my closet to the kitchen cupboards. I did multiple loads of laundry.

I tried extremely hard to forget about how my eyes turned silver in the bathroom at STAR Labs. They had stayed green since, so I put the one incident down to a fluke.

It took exactly one week for me to finally convince Joe to let me go back to work for real – I'd been by the precinct several times to check up on the state of things, but always under the watchful eye of Joe, who didn't let me out of his sight for a moment.

Walking through the front doors of the CCPD with a new employee ID clipped to my belt was the best feeling I'd had since waking up. It was the most normal feeling I'd had all week. And judging by Barry's deep breath as he walks in beside me, he felt the exact same way.

"Allen!" Captain Singh calls as we approach the stairs. "Good to see you on time for once."

"Well we couldn't make a bad first impression, now could we?" Barry retorts cheekily.

"And it's good to see you too, Cap'n," I drawl. "It's like we never left."

"You've got a mountain of cases waiting for you," he informs us. "Your replacements were…bad, to say the least."

"So you _did_ miss us," I deduce triumphantly.

Singh is very quick to correct, "I missed your work. Get back to it."

Barry and I nod and start up the stairs, but we're quickly stopped by Singh speaking up again.

"Allen…Ellie."

I stop and spin around, waving for Barry to go on ahead as I face Singh again. "Yessir?"

"Good to have you back."

I can almost feel my jaw drop as shock crashes over me like a tidal wave. "Uh…yes…sir."

Singh nods, I nod back, and just like that, the moment's over. I scurry away and up the stairs, grinning to myself as I approach the lab. "You know, I think Singh is warming up to me."

"One can only hope," Barry sighs. "But we've got bigger problems. Look around."

I do so, raising an eyebrow at the state of the lab. It was organized, neat, and clean. The chemicals were neatly shelved and the papers stacked in tidy piles, and yet…

"It's wrong," I declare. "The chemicals are organized wrong and my desk is too clean…" I trail off, suddenly noticing that the skylight was gone – the glass that once showed the sky now only showed more bricks. Directly below that, there was a blacked spot just big enough for two people to stand in.

"I really hope they get rid of that soon," I whisper, and Barry murmurs his agreement from behind a pile of paperwork.

I turn sharply on me heel to avoid staring at the spot and take a seat at my desk, running a hand over the wood and frowning as I leave trails in the layer of dust coating it.

"I thought Singh said we had replacements?"

"We did, but I don't think they worked in here," Barry guesses. "Maybe Joe banished them to a closet or something."

"Figures he would," I snort, shaking my head. "This just means I'll have to dust in here for the first time in forever. And reorganize everything, of course, but that'll come with time."

Barry nods, and I grab the first file off my stack; just as I turn on my computer, however, there's a knock on the door.

"Come in!" I call, and the door swings open to admit Iris, who prances in per usual, except she's followed by a tall, blonde, honestly very pretty man.

"Who's your friend?" I ask, interest piqued.

"Oh, right, I forgot – Ellie, meet Detective Eddie Thawne, my…friend. Eddie, this is Ellie and Barry Allen, my two best friends since forever."

"Hi." I get up and move around my desk to shake the detective's hand, instantly noting everything I could – his grip was firm, his hand rough via gun callouses. He was blonde, with blue-eyes and a build like that of a model; in short, he was _way_ too handsome for Iris' 'friend' title to be entirely correct.

"Hey, Iris," I call over, interrupting her chat with Barry. "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

"Uh, sure," she replies, sounding confused, but walks over anyways. "What is it?"

Instead of replying, I grab her arm and forcibly drag her out of the room, stopping once we were in a quiet corner just down the hall.

" _That_ …is not your friend," I accuse, jabbing a finger back towards the lab. "He's looks like he just stepped out of a Hollister magazine. Tell me he's not just your friend."

"What? No. Ellie, I swear, he's just my friend," she defends. "You're reading too deeply into this. Besides, I've been too distracted over the past few months to get a boyfriend anyway."

"Riiiight," I agree, shifting my weight and crossing my arms. "So if I, by chance, happened to walk back in there and give Detective Thawne a steamy kiss, right out of the blue, you'd be completely fine with it?"

The shock, and then anger, on Iris' face gives her away in a second, but she still holds up her cover. "I – what? Yeah, sure, I'd be fine. I don't know why you'd do that, though, given that it's totally random and you're at work and…"

I sigh and shut my eyes with a slight shake of my head. I can feel that tingly feeling from the bathroom returning, racing under my skin like a million volts of electricity. I almost don't seem to be in control of my own body as I square my feet, place my hands on Iris' shoulders, look her straight in the eyes, and say only five words:

"Iris… _tell. Me. The. Truth._ "

Standing this close, looking directly at Iris, there's no way I can miss what happens next: Iris' face loses all emotion – it's like she had suddenly fallen asleep or turned into a statue. There was no expression whatsoever. And then her eyes turn from brown to cloudy to silver – the same shade of silver my eyes had turned two days ago.

I don't even hear Iris' reply as my heart plummets into my stomach. I had no idea what had just happened, but I knew – somewhere, deep inside – that I'd caused it. I had just done something to Iris, and I had _no idea_ what.

I eventually mutter out some excuse to leave and stumble back down the hallway and into the lab. Luckily, Eddie had left and Barry was back at work, which let me return to work and make my best attempt at shoving down the panic threatening to rise up and choke me without anyone asking questions.

Despite the seclusion, I can't get the look on Iris' face – or the lack thereof – out of my head. It didn't help that the tingly feeling hadn't faded from my limbs yet; I currently felt like I had a circuit board powered up under my skin. The feeling seemed to be concentrating in my head, bringing on the telltale signs of a headache.

I was just about to put my head down and maybe get some sleep when Barry bursts through the door with a cacophony of sound.

"…Aren't you supposed to be on a lunch break?" I ask tiredly as I pinch the bridge of my nose.

"Did you know Detective Horowitz had a baby?" Barry demands urgently. He sounded like he was hanging onto the edge of panic, and I raise my head to look at him properly.

"I didn't know she was even pregnant."

"She – are you okay?" Barry asks suddenly, breaking through his explanation to give me a quizzical look.

"Yeah, just a bit of a headache," I sigh. "Why?"

"Your eyes, they looked…never mind." He shakes his head. "Detective Horowitz had a _baby._ I – she wasn't even pregnant!"

"Not when we went under, no," I sigh, spinning around in my chair and using my reflection in the window to make sure that my eyes were green. "But if I remember high school biology correctly, nine months and one week is plenty time to have a baby."

"Right, right, it's just…" Barry rakes a hand through his hair, a familiar gesture of frustration. "God, we just – nine months, Ellie. It doesn't feel like we even left!"

"'Course it doesn't," I shrug nonchalantly. "To us, it just feels like we took a really long nap."

"How are you being so chill about this?!" Barry demands in a voice that's just shy of a shout.

"Oh, trust me, I'm not," I quickly assure him, shoving my chair back. "I'm freaked out, Bear, and I'm a hair's breadth away from flipping-"

I'm cut off by the sound of the door slamming as Barry bolts from the room. I freeze for a moment, gaping at the door for a moment before my mind finally catches up to my body and I scramble after him. I manage to keep track of him down the stairs, out the front doors of the precinct, and into a side alley.

"Barry," I shout. "Barry! Stop!"

He skids to a halt in the middle of the alley, and even from several feet away I can see his chest heaving. I can see his anxious tics – running his hand through his hair, pulling at his collar, pacing agitatedly back and forth across the alley.

"Barry…" I begin, but the air is stolen from my lungs as Barry turns around and holds up his hands…which were vibrating. I blink to make sure I wasn't seeing things – and, no, they were still vibrating.

"Barry, what's going on?" I ask quietly. "What is this?"

"I don't know," he whispers. "It – it feels like I've got this energy built up in my chest and I can't get it out. My skin is all weird, and my hands keep shaking, and I feel like I've just had ten cups of coffee in the last hour."

"Mhm," I nod slowly, mentally comparing my brother's condition to my own – the odd, tingly feeling was the same, although his seemed to be based in his chest while mine was still giving me a headache. I wasn't as jittery as he described, though.

"If you're feeling hyped up, then what do you need to do to get the energy out?"

"I think…" Barry pauses before blurting out, "I need to run."

"You-" I take a step back. "You're not much of a runner, Bear."

"I know," he huffs. "I know. But…"

I nod and shuffle back a few steps, waving a hand at the mouth of the alley. "Be my guest."

Barry nods, takes a deep breath, and takes a step forward – only to disappear in a gust of wind.

"What…the _fuck_?" I ask the empty alley, glancing left and right – I was alone. Barry was just…gone. Whoosh.

Until he reappears with another _whoosh,_ a flash of yellow light, and an exclamation of "Whoa yeah!"

"What was that?" I demand hotly, circling Barry to check for any wounds.

"I was fast," he whispers, and then louder: "I was _fast!_ "

"Quiet," I hiss, slapping a hand over his mouth. "Advertise our freaky abilities to the whole city, why don't you?"

Barry rolls his eyes and huffs against my hand, and I remove it before he decides to lick it.

"What do you mean, you were fast?" I continue quietly. "Because I saw you disappear."

"I must've been running too fast for you to see," he realizes slowly. "Ellie, I was going so _fast_ , and I know I should be scared right now, but this is the most normal I've felt since waking up."

I purse my lips and run a hand through my hair as I pace in a circle, ending up in front of Barry again as I side-eye him. "You sure?"

"That I'm alright, or that I feel normal?"

"…Yes."

"I feel fine," he promises. "I feel _better_ than fine, actually."

I hiss out a breath and squeeze my eyes shut as a decision falls into place. Opening them again, I turn around and retreat towards the street. "Come on. Call Joe, would you? Tell him we're taking the rest of the day."

"Where are we going?"

"Back to S.T.A.R. Labs. We need to get some answers, now."

.

"Ow. Ow. Ah – ow. Caitlin! Stop!"

"Well, I'm sorry for ensuring your continued good health!" the doctor – bio-engineer, actually, as she'd offhandedly mentioned – retorts as she removes yet another needle from my arm.

I wince as she prepares yet another syringe. Since arriving at S.T.A.R. Labs about an hour and a half earlier, I'd been subjected to at least two rounds of every medical test I could think of, some I couldn't, and then some I was sure she'd made up to torture me.

"Is this really necessary?" I whine as she sticks me again. "I just wanna know if I'm radioactive or not."

"You're probably not," she reassures me. "And if it's any consolation, I'm going to do the same thing to Barry as soon as he gets off the treadmill. You did say he was running faster than usual, right?"

"Well given that he's usually a slow-ass runner, yeah," I huff with a grin. "I mean, I just saw him disappear and then reappear in a flash, but he said he was just running too fast for me to track."

Caitlin hums in confirmation as she checks a monitor. "And have you been experiencing anything like that?"

I shake my head, but pause as I wonder if I should tell her about the altercation with Iris earlier. I didn't want to tell her – I didn't want to tell anyone. I wanted to keep that a secret until the day I died. On the other hand, though, Caitlin Snow and her colleagues were possibly the only ones that could help me figure out what was going on. I was getting the strong impression that if I told anyone else, I'd be shipped off to the psychiatric ward of Iron Heights, and one family member in there was more than enough.

That, and I still had a killer headache. Maybe Caitlin would have something for it.

I release a deep sigh and slowly start talking about that had happened since I woke up – how my eyes had been changing color, how I'd talked to Iris, the way her face had looked afterwards; even down to the electric feeling Barry and I had both been feeling all morning.

"And you're sure her face went blank?" she questions, a thoughtful look on her face.

"I couldn't miss it," I assure her, my throat dry.

"How were you talking to her? Just normally, like you are right now, or…"

"Um…" I tip my head back as I try to remember. "I was frustrated. She was hiding something from me, something stupid, and I got frustrated and demanded she tell me the truth…and she did."

"So whatever this is, it's triggered by adrenaline…" she muses, inspecting an instrument tray. I watch as she picks up a scalpel and flips it over in her hands as she moves back towards me.

Without warning, she lunges at my side, scalpel glinting dangerously. I yelp and dive out of the way, screaming "Caitlin, _stop!"_

Nothing happens.

I turn my head to see Caitlin's face blank, her eyes shining silver. And then, in the blink of an eye, her eyes are blue again and all she says is, "Hm."

"That's all you have to say?!" I ask incredulously. "I just hypnotized you and all you have to say is 'hm'?!"

"It worked, then."

"You didn't know it would work?" I ask. "You would have stabbed me!"

Caitlin only gives me a vague shrug as she returns the scalpel to its tray and jots something down on a piece of paper.

"The good thing," she surmises, "is that it worked. You know how to trigger the…whatever it is, now."

"What, by waiting for someone to stab me?" I ask dryly. "Sure, sounds like a plan."

"I _meant_ with the adrenaline factor," she corrects firmly. "Now you know how to turn the ability on and off, since you're not using your…ability…right now, right?"

I nod, looking away from Caitlin as footsteps sound from the doorway and Cisco and Barry appear, the latter's hair looking windswept.

"How was the treadmill?" I ask, hopping off the examination table and straightening my t-shirt.

"Our man Barry here just broke the treadmill," Cisco reports, practically bouncing from excitement. "He's like a real _Speed Racer_."

"Except for the part where I'm not a car," Barry interjects dryly as he takes my place on the table and Caitlin readies her tests all over again.

"Well, wish me luck. And have fun over here," I add on, quirking a grin. "She's got a _load_ of fun planned for you," I call over my shoulder. I just barely make it out of the room before snickering madly.

"What is this about?" Cisco asks as he follows me into a side room where a chair that looks frighteningly like an electric one awaits, along with Dr. Wells.

"Um, just a sibling thing," I mutter distractedly, giving the chair a wary look. "What's with all…this? I'm not going to get electrocuted, right?"

"What? Oh, no," Cisco assures me quickly. "We were originally going to put you on the treadmill, to see if you had the same thing your brother did, but since the treadmill can't handle Barry Allen, we've got to settle for this." He waves a hand at the chair. "With this bad boy, we'll be able to read your brain waves, as well as energy possibly outputted from your hands and feet. You just need put this on." He holds out a bundle of black fabric.

I take it and unroll a black tank top made of a material that felt like synthetic, but different. "What is this?"

"A conductive fabric I designed that'll be able to read electrodes without you, uh, stripping," he explains, stuttering awkwardly. "I figured that'd be uncomfortable for everyone involved."

"Yeah," I laugh, turning to head towards the bathroom. "Thanks, Cisco."

It only takes me about a minute to switch from my street clothes to the ones Cisco had designed – along with the shirt, there were also knee-length shorts that reminded me of the ones cyclers wore. Everything was skintight, which was annoying, but I understood the necessity of it.

I return to the room with the Electric-Chair-That-Wasn't and take a seat. Cisco quickly attaches electrodes to my temples, forehead, and neck, and then various other places on my hands, feet, and torso.

"Make sure to sit still, Ms. Allen," Dr. Wells instructs. "We're starting the readings in three…two…one…"

The room is filled with a mechanical humming as the machines start up, followed by a chorus of beeping as they start taking readings.

"Okay, they're holding steady," Cisco calls out. "Your brainwaves are sky-high, Ellie. I'm no neurologist, but I don't think this is normal."

I watch Dr. Wells wheel himself over to where the engineer was standing, and I watch with growing agitation as his eyes widen minutely. "Dr. Wells?"

"Everything is alright, Ellie," he assures me. "You're not in any danger. However, your brainwaves are much more active than that of a normal human being."

"Um…how so?" I ask, being careful not to fidget.

"How much do you know about neurology, Ms. Allen?"

"Not much. I went to school for physics and engineering."

"There are five types of brain waves," Wells informs me. "From fastest to slowest, there are Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. The highest of these – Gamma, responsible for higher processing and cognitive functions – don't usually exceed 100 Hertz."

"And…mine are reading...what?"

"It's peaking at 500," Cisco offers.

I can only gape at the two of them as that information sinks in – my brain was five times more powerful than it had been before the accident. And somehow, that had a direct influence over what came out of my mouth.

"This is why I can make people…do things, right?" I ask quietly.

"Is that what you think this is?" Wells asks. "Some sort of…mental manipulation?"

I hesitate, biting my lip as I glance between Cisco and Wells. "I don't know. I was hoping you knew, Dr. Wells."

"I am a man of science, Ellie, not one of magic," Wells admonishes as he wheels himself from behind the console and moves to the center of the room. "I want you to remember every time you've used your…abilities. Remember any common factors between the incidents."

"I've already told Caitlin this," I offer. "She found out that adrenaline usually triggers – uh, whatever this is."

"Ah," Wells murmurs thoughtfully. "I'll have to see Dr. Snow about her findings, then. For now, Cisco, disconnect Ms. Allen, please – I think we've put her through enough tests today."

I quirk a grin as Cisco quickly unhooks the electrodes and hands me my clothes. "Thanks."

"Ellie." Dr. Wells stops me just as I was about to walk out the door. "I think it is safe to say that not only are you and Barry two-of-a-kind, but that you are going to change the world."

"Thank you," I mumble as I shuffle out the door.

 _That's what I'm afraid of._


	6. The First Hurdle

Do you ever find yourself in a situation where one moment, you're just living your everyday life, and then something happens and suddenly you realize that everything is clear – you've got a purpose in life that you didn't see before.

I've had several of these revelations, personally. One the night my mother died. One the time I realized that the justice system wouldn't help my father, so I had to do it myself.

And that was just before I turned fifteen. Many more were to follow, but the most important one happened one week and one day after I woke up from the coma. I can even remember the exact circumstances: I'd woken up early for once and decided I could treat myself to a Frappuccino and a brownie from Jitters. The usual location had been closed, so I detoured to one in a slightly shadier part of the city.

After a quick coffee break, I started to make my way to work. I cut through some of the back streets of the city for a while, and then I rounded a corner and stumbled upon an unusual scene: two men in ski masks cornering their victim; a girl of maybe sixteen, at the very most.

I drop my coffee and shrink back behind the corner, pressing my back against the brick as I strain to hear what was being said.

"Just give us the purse and no one has to get hurt," one of the robbers says in a low tone. "Nice and quiet, now."

"You can't do this!" a second voice protests, this one young, shrill, and female – the victim. "Please, just let me go! I'm only fifteen, this is all I have-"

"Hand over the bag, bitch!" a third voice – the second robber – says harshly. "I'm not afraid to shoot you, kid or not!"

My pulse jumps, and I peer out from behind my hiding spot to see that the men have close in on the girl and are brandishing their guns in the most threatening way possible. Pulling back, I take a deep breath as a conversation I'd held with Dr. Wells during my last visit to STAR Labs comes floating back to me.

" _I can make people…do things…"_

" _Is that what you think this is? Some sort of mental manipulation?"_

If I could get Iris to tell the truth, and Caitlin to _not_ stab me, then I could probably get these guys to drop their guns without getting shot.

 _That's a pretty big 'if'_ , a traitorous little voice in the back of my mind whispers.

 _Shut up,_ I tell it sternly as I lean back and close my eyes, focusing on the way the adrenaline was making my heart pound, the way my blood was roaring in my ears. I could almost feel the electricity running through my body, washing over my brain in a wave of power. I reach out and grab on to that wave, letting it crash over me and envelope me like a tidal wave – although, right now, I wasn't drowning.

When I opened my eyes, I knew, with absolute certainty, that they were shining silver.

I take another deep breath and step around the corner, crossing the distance between me and the mugging in a few steps.

"Hey!" I call, my voice carrying an eerie echo. "Why don't you two asshats pick on someone your own size?"

"This doesn't concern you, lady," one of the robbers – the first voice – snaps, looking over his shoulder at me. "Get lost."

"I don't think I will," I counter. "I'm not going to let you do this."

"Really?" The second robber laughs. "What are you, some kind of _superhero_?"

"Not…quite," I reply with only a moment of hesitation as I step forward. "I need you to put the gun down."

The robber's gaze flashes silver and his grip falters, but he doesn't put the gun down – I take a deep breath, clench my fists, and repeat myself.

" **Put. The gun. Down.** _ **Now,**_ " I order, the echo behind my voice intensifying until it bounced off the building around me.

The robber's gaze flashes silver as his grips goes slack. The gun falls to the pavement and I quickly kick it away, glancing at the second mugger – thankfully, he seemed too stunned to move – before returning to my main target.

" **Sit down** ," I command, pleased to see the mugger do just that. Turning my attention to the second mugger, I raise an eyebrow. "What're you looking at? **Drop your gun and sit down next to your friend.** "

He complies, and although I could feel my adrenaline fading, I face both the muggers and use the last dredges of my energy to command, **"Stay still until the police get here."**

Their eyes flash silver. Satisfied, I nod to myself and move around them to approach the victim. "Are you okay?"

"I…y-yeah," she squeaks, voice and hands both trembling. "Thank…thank you. How did you just do that?"

"Uh…long story," I stammer. "What's your name?"

"I – I'm Alyssa."

"Okay, Alyssa, I'm Ellie," I introduce myself with a sense of calm that I certainly wasn't feeling. "Alyssa, are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she assures me. "How did you – what did you do to them?" she asks, backing away from the muggers and giving me a wary look. "Did you kill them?"

"No," I pant, feeling the adrenaline fade completely. "No, just – they shouldn't bother you. Please call 911, tell them what happened and…don't mention me."

"I – yes. Yes, okay, I – I'll do that." Alyssa fumbles with her phone as she dials the three digits, and I amble away while keeping one ear on her conversation with the dispatcher.

I lean back against the wall behind Alyssa partly out of habit and partly out of necessity; with the adrenaline gone, I had one hell of a crash coming on, which came with an all-inclusive headache, tremors, and a very sudden appetite.

I wait around until I hear sirens in the distance and then push off the wall, circling the would-be muggers to make sure they still hadn't moved before approaching Alyssa again. "Remember, I was never here."

"Sure, but why-"

I slip around the corner before she can finish the question. I walk past my spilled coffee with only a slight pause and a moment of silence in remembrance before I continue walking, pulling out my phone and hitting speed dial #1.

" _Hello?"_

"Barry, hey."

" _Ellie? Where the hell are you, work started half an hour ago and Joe says you never showed!"_

I switch my phone between hands and check the time – sure enough, it was about 9:30. Apparently time flew when I was being a Good Samaritan.

"Yeah, I don't think I'll be coming in today. I've got a few days saved up. I'm at the corner of Dalton and Pine – can you meet me at the park?"

" _Ellie, what's going on? Joe's gonna have my ass, let alone Singh-"_

"I'll deal with Joe," I cut in. "Please, Barry, it's important."

There's a long, pregnant pause on the other end of the line, and just as I'm about to hang up, Barry sighs and says, _"Okay. Fine. I'll be there in five."_

"Yay. Thank you, Bear."

" _Don't thank me yet – you still have to deal with Joe."_

"Ugh," I groan, rolling my eyes. "You're insufferable, you know that?"

" _Yeah. Bye,"_ he chirps before the line goes dead and I'm left staring at a black screen.

I half-heartedly grumble some not-so-complimentary words before picking up the phone and hitting speed dial #2. "Hey Joe."

" _Ellie! Why aren't you at work? You were supposed to be here-"_

"Half an hour ago," I finish. "Yeah, I know. I'm not coming in today."

" _What? Why?"_ my foster-father asks. _"Are you okay? Are you sick? Were there complications with the coma?"_

"No, no, Joe, I'm fine," I quickly assure him before he can spiral further into panic. "It's been a week, if there were any complications I think they would've found them by now. Nah, I've just got overprotective doctors," I lie. "They're just keeping me at STAR Labs for the day. It's not a big deal, and I'll call you if anything comes up. Promise."

" _This better not be like the time you 'promised' me you wouldn't take my car out for a joyride when you were fifteen. I'm still paying the bills for that one."_

"No," I laugh. "I'll call you, I promise. For real this time."

" _If you say so,"_ Joe relents, still not sounding convinced. _"Look, I've got to get back to work. Keep me in the loop, alright?"_

"Always," I promise. "I'll call you later, Joe." I hit the 'end call' button and slip my phone in my pocket. After a pit stop at a nearby Big Belly Burger, I arrive at the park and find a seat on a bench, unwrapping my food and settling in to wait for my brother.

"Isn't it a little early for lunch?" Barry asks as he sits down next to me.

"Shut up, I'm starving," I defend around a mouthful of fries. "I didn't get breakfast this morning. I was a little busy stopping a mugging."

"What?" Barry yelps. "Really? Are you hurt? What happened?"

"I'm fine," I assure him. "I don't have a scratch on me. All I had to do was tell the thugs to drop their guns…and they did. I literally told them to sit still and wait for the cops _and they did,_ Barry."

"You used your powers again?" he asks excitedly.

"Powers?" I question skeptically. "Is that what we're calling them now?"

"Well, yeah…I mean, that's what Cisco called them the other day and it's less creepy than 'abilities.'"

"You make it sound like we're superheroes," I point out, amused.

Barry begins to backpedal. "I'm not saying we are-"

"But maybe we should be," I argue, leaning forward to balance my elbows on my knees. "Barry, you told me that when you were running, it was the most normal you'd felt since waking up. And just now, I was able to _help_ someone – a teenager. A kid. I was able to save her. What if…what if we're supposed to use our abilities – our _powers –_ to help people? What if that's how we feel normal?"

"Are…are you saying we should become, like, Spiderman or something?"

"No, no, and I'm also _not_ saying to jump head-first into all this and start rescuing little old ladies from burning buildings. Don't do that," I instruct sternly.

"I wasn't gonna do that," Barry defends, putting on his best innocent face.

"You were." I shake my head. "Look, we don't even know how our powers work yet, and I'm not going to make a habit of trusting my life to something I don't understand."

"Then let's understand them better," Barry suggests as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "We could head in to STAR Labs, see if they can find anything else."

"What more is there to find?" I ask, rolling my eyes. "You run fast. I'm some sort of walking, talking puppeteer or something – which is a scary concept, when you think about it – and together, we…I don't know, stop muggers? Rescue kittens from trees?"

"I don't think I'm any good with heights, super speed or not," Barry jokes as we make our way down the sidewalk. "That's more your job, I think."

"Yeah, I'll leave the burning buildings and little old ladies to you," I tease in return. "Speaking of, do you think…"

I trail off as we pass an electronics store, all the televisions in the display window displaying the same headline and the same footage of a news reporter standing in front of Central City National Bank.

"… _after the bank robbery earlier this morning,"_ the reporter was saying. _"Witnesses report seeing a man that could control the weather create a miniature hurricane inside the bank – while police have yet to comment on the matter, conspiracy theorists are already beginning to claim that this is the beginning of a new age of criminal…"_

I can feel the blood drain from my face as I whirl around to face Barry, and as his eyes meet mine, an unspoken agreement passes between us.

 _We need to be at STAR Labs. Now._

 _._

"Has anyone seen the news this morning?" I demand as I burst into the cortex about five minutes later, thanks to my brothers newly-minted 'powers'.

"Uh, no," Cisco replies as he walks into the room. "Why, what's going on?"

"I think we just found someone else with powers," Barry announces. "Turn on the closest new channel – it's probably everywhere by now."

Cisco looks confused but complies anyway, turning on one of the monitors closest to the computer bank, which – sure enough – was showing the same story as the one Barry and I had seen.

"Five bucks says that guy was involved in the particle accelerator explosion," Cisco jibes a few minutes later. He sounded like he was in the early stages of shock.

"No bet," I huff from where I'd taken a seat behind the computers.

"What I'm more worried about is who that guy is," Barry says. "He looks just like Clyde Mardon, but as far as Joe knows, the Mardon brothers both died the night of the accident."

"Are you sure it's Mardon?" I question. "I mean, he was wearing a baseball cap, and CCPD facial recognition software can't usually make out faces if they're covered."

"Luckily for you, we're not at the CCPD," Cisco announces triumphantly. "Running facial recognition now…and…bam!"

I lean over his shoulder and sigh at the results. "93% match for Clyde Mardon." I flop into a chair and sigh. "First we get literal _superpowers,_ and now people are coming back from the dead. I swear to god, if I start seeing unicorns I'm going to blame this on LSD."

"Did I miss something?" Caitlin's voice asks as she walks in the room, followed closely by the sound of Dr. Wells' wheelchair.

"Oh, nothing much, just zombie supervillains," Cisco informs her casually.

"We think Clyde Mardon – who is not dead, as we previously thought – was affected by the particle accelerator explosion," Barry clarifies. "Dr. Wells, I thought you said we were two of a kind."

I do a 180 and give the wheelchair-bound scientist an intense look. "If we weren't the only ones, then how many others were affected? I mean, are we talking ten or one hundred?"

Wells doesn't meet my eyes. "It's difficult to say, really…we have no way of knowing how many meta-humans were created on the night of the accident."

"You said the city was safe," Barry accuses, the heat in his voice steadily rising. "You said there was no lasting danger! What if there's a powered person-"

"Meta-human," Cisco supplies.

"-a meta-human that can shoot lasers out of their eyes or – or one that could burn the city down with one thought? What then?"

"We need to know how much danger the city is in, Dr. Wells." I cross my arms and square my shoulders. "And to do that, we need you to stop trying to cover up how much damage the particle accelerator caused."

Wells looks up to meet my eyes, and after an intense staring contest – the glint in his eyes was unnerving, I had to admit – he wheels himself over to the console and pulls up a map on one of the monitors.

"This is a simulation I made just after the explosion," he explains, pressing a few computer keys. "It's designed to show how far the dark matter wave resulting from the particle accelerator explosion spread."

On the monitor, I watch the explosion erupt in a dome of glowing light, enveloping the city at a rapid pace and leaving a sea of glowing dots in its wake, each one a possible metahuman.

Behind me, Barry makes a strangled sound. "That's the entire city. The entire city was affected?!"

"It's possible," Caitlin confirms in a feeble voice.

I knew Barry was expecting me to come to his defense, but I keep my mouth shut as I run some mental math. At the last census, the population of Central City was reported at about 850,000 people – and that was four years ago. Even if only half those people were now meta-humans (which was probably an underestimate), we'd still have four hundred and twenty-five _thousand_ people with sudden powers that could wreak havoc on the city.

"We have to stop them," I whisper. All of the conversation in the room suddenly halts, and I look up to see four pairs of eyes staring at me. "What?"

"You're on board with that plan now?" Barry asks, equal measures surprised and skeptical. "You didn't seem on board with that plan earlier."

"Before I didn't know that we have hundreds of thousands of potential hazards running loose in the city," I snap.

"Okay, I've totally missed something here," Cisco announces. "What plan are we talking about?"

"The one where Barry and I become…superheroes, for lack of a better word."

Cisco's face instantly lights up, and Caitlin looks excited, if a little more apprehensive than her colleague; Dr. Wells, on the other hand, looked extremely annoyed. I could tell, straight off the bat, that he didn't think this was a good idea at all.

"Hold on a moment," he demands. "We have no idea what the extent of your powers are – either of you – and you want to go out and play hero against forces you can't hope to contain?"

"If I can help them, then yes," I insist.

"But you can't! Neither of you cannot help these people," Wells nearly shouts. "You think you're something special. You think you can do anything you want – you think you can push the bounds of safety but you can't. You can't do this, Eleanor!"

I shoot to my feet, ready to rise to my own defense, but Dr. Wells wheels himself forward to that we were toe-to-toe – or toe-to-wheel, I guess.

"You think you're something special," he hisses in a low tone. "You think you can be some great hero now that you've got these abilities, but you can't. You are nothing special, do you hear me? What happened with the particle accelerator does not make you anything more than what you are – and the two of you are only a young man and a young woman that were struck by lightning."

The room is left in stunned silence after Dr. Wells' outburst, and the man himself turns around and moves towards the computer console, but I take a step forward. "No."

"…Excuse me?"

"No," I repeat through clenched teeth. "I refuse to believe that I can't do anything about this situation, Dr. Wells. Because I have kick-ass, honest-to-god _superpowers_ and you wanna tell me I can't help anything or anyone?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"You don't know what you would be facing if you did this," Wells insists.

"Maybe I don't," I fire back. "But you know _nothing_ about me – don't pretend that you do. I have seen the desperate side of humanity, Dr. Wells, in a way that you never have and probably never will. I have seen what fear and desperation and anger can do to good people – people I love. People I care about. If you think I am going to sit by and watch the people of this city fall to that same trend, you've got another thing coming."

By the end of my little speech, my voice had risen to a shout, and once I pause to rein myself in, I notice that the room had gone completely silent. A quick glance around shows Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco all staring at me in shock.

Barry is the first to find his voice. "Ellie-"

Without saying a word, I snatch my jacket off a chair and aggressively tug it on as I storm out of the room.

"Ellie! El!" Barry calls behind me, his footsteps chasing me down the hallway. "Hey, wait!" he pleads as he catches up to me and grabs my arm.

"What?" I snap. "If you bought in to a word that man just said, Barry, I will punch you."

"No, no, I believe you," he promises. "I'm on board with the whole 'helping people' thing, but we need help."

I pause, considering this for a moment before nodding. "Okay…but how exactly do we do that? I mean, it's not like there's a book called 'Heroics for Dummies' out there."

"Yeah, but I know a guy who could help us out." Barry grins. "How do you feel about a trip to Starling City?"


	7. We're Not in Kansas Anymore

I yelp as I hit the pavement hard, roll over, and dry heave, committing every fiber of my being to _not_ throwing up.

"Sorry!" Barry yelps from somewhere above me. "Sorry, I completely forgot to factor in what the G-Force would do to you at that speed – oh my god, are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?" I groan, pushing myself into a sitting position, which was about as much as I could manage between the black spots swarming in my vision and the way the world was spinning like a top right now. "I could have died. Just – splat. No more Ellie. A tragic start to our superhero career. Speaking of, did you call him?"

"Yeah, he should be here any minute. Take your time, stand up whenever you're ready," he advises gently.

It takes about another two minutes for my vision to clear and the world to stand still, and by the time I find my feet again, a shadowed figure is just swinging down onto the roof.

I glance over and grin. "Oliver. Hey."

"Ellie, Barry. Good to see you up and about," the green-hooded vigilante greets as he turns around. "Should you even be walking around, let alone making the 600-mile journey to Starling just to say hello to a friend?"

"Uh, yeah, so…" I scuff a toe on the cement below us. "That's the thing. We need your advice on something."

Oliver gives us a questioning look, and Barry sighs. Together, we start the story from the beginning – everything from the particle accelerator to the accident to the coma, and then everything that had happened since then.

"So, let me get this straight," Oliver says after we finish. He turns to Barry. "You can run at the speed of sound."

"Yeah. I mean, not yet, but I might be able to go faster, we don't know yet. I mean, it's only been a week."

"And you…" he turns to me. "You can…?"

"Hypnotize people," I supply. "I think. It's kinda complicated, I don't know the full extent of what I can do yet."

"Right," Oliver nods, still looking slightly confused. "And the two of you want to become…superheroes."

Barry and I nod simultaneously.

"Do you not think we could do it?" I ask anxiously.

"I have no doubt that the two of you, individually or as a team, could do what I do," Oliver is quick to assure me. "My main question is why you would _want_ to."

"Because…I've got superpowers? What _else_ would you like me to do, go work at Big Belly Burger?" I ask.

The corner of Oliver's lips twitch upwards, and I count that as a win.

"But…what if Wells is right?" Barry asks. "What if we're nothing but two kids that got struck by lightning? What if I can't be you?"

"Don't be me. Be better," Oliver advises. "I don't think that lightning struck you, I think it chose you. Both of you have an opportunity to inspire people in a way that I can't; you can save people and help your city without them fearing you, without having to work in the shadows like I do."

" _I don't think that lightning struck you, I think it chose you."_ That particular sentence forms a loop in my brain as I nod and release a deep breath. "Thank you, Oliver."

The vigilante nods and Barry clears his throat.

"We should head back," he says. "We've got work to do, and STAR Labs is probably expecting us-"

As if on cue, Barry's phone rings, Cisco's name displayed on the screen. I stand by patiently as he picks up, talks for a moment, listens for a moment more, and then hangs up again.

"I've gotta go, they've got something for us at STAR Labs," Barry blurts out in a rush, stuffing his phone back into his pocket.

"Okay, just-" Before I can finish, Barry disappears with a flash of lightning and a gust of wind. "Dammit, Barry! _Barry!"_ I shout, marching over to the edge of the roof and leaning over slightly. "He was my ride!" I exclaim angrily. I look over my shoulder to see Oliver repressing a smile. "It's not _funny._ "

"Of course not," he agrees, his expression solemn and his eyes – even though they were covered by the mask – belying that entirely.

I half-heartedly grumble at him as I return to the center of the roof. "It's probably going to take him a few minutes to realize he's forgotten something, so if you need to go do your thing, don't let me stop you."

Oliver shakes his head. "I've got a few minutes." He takes a seat on a large air conditioning unit. "Want another piece of advice?"

"Hm?"

"Get your own ride."

"No shit, Sherlock," I laugh. "Although, that's probably best in the long-term – I can't handle being carried much longer," I admit. "Not because of my pride or anything, just because my body doesn't like going 600 miles an hour and then stopping suddenly. But it also is a pride thing, don't get me wrong – if I'm gonna be a superhero, my brother carrying me around like some damsel doesn't exactly send the best message, you know?"

"Ellie. I get it," Oliver cuts me off sternly.

"Oh. Right. Sorry," I apologize sheepishly, feeling my cheeks burn. "So, what do you suggest? Ride-wise, I mean."

"I've found that motorcycles generally work," he says conversationally, looking out over the city.

I step up to his side, taking in the view; Starling City and I shared what one might call a troubled past, but even I couldn't deny that the skyline at night was a sight to behold – the bustling streets, the skyscrapers twinkling with artificial stars…the streak of yellow lightning zooming towards us.

"Barry," I hum to myself just before the man himself appears on the rooftop, panting slightly. "You forget something?"

"I am _so_ sorry!" he apologizes profusely. "I was already at home when I realized you weren't there, and I didn't mean to forget you, I _swear_ , and we really have to find a better system to this-"

"We do," I agree, "but I can't do that until we get home. Let's go," I prompt, allowing Barry to wrap an arm around my wait. "See you around, Oliver. Stay safe out there."

"You too," Oliver replies with a nod. "And one more thing: take your own advice. Wear masks." With that, he fires a grappling arrow and swings off into the night.

"That is so cool," I murmur quietly, watching his silhouette until I couldn't see it anymore. Turning back to Barry, I loop my arms around his neck and the world dissolves into a blur.

Barry skids to a stop in front of STAR Labs, and once I was done transferring the contents of my stomach into the bushes out front, we head inside.

"Cisco, we need to find a better way for me to get around," I announce as I enter the cortex. "Remind me to start looking at motorcycle designs when we get a break."

"Noted, but we've got bigger fish to fry right now." Cisco moves to one of the tables, which was stacked high with boxes – file boxes, I realize, marked with the CCPD logo. "This is all that we've managed to gather from the last nine months. The crime rate has skyrocketed, and a good 80% of it mentions 'inexplicable circumstances,'" he explains, complete with air quotes. "Our meta-humans have been busy."

I frown at the guilty look that takes over the other engineer's face. "Hey, don't do that," I chide, crossing the room to poke him in the shoulder. "The particle accelerator was not your fault. You didn't know what was going to happen. Neither of you did," I add, glancing at Caitlin

"Yeah, but now we've got a circus of freaks running around the city, so excuse me if I'm not feeling too good about myself," Cisco gripes, then whips his head around to look at me. "I didn't mean _you_ were a freak-"

"Nah, it's fine." I wave a hand dismissively, leaning over to grab a file from the nearest box. "Some of these freaks have pretty cool powers, like this guy – who is reported as being able to 'summon nearby animals and compel them to attack the mall security guard.'"

"We got a regular Snow White over here," Cisco jokes, a smile retaking his face.

Caitlin, ever the realist, quickly pipes in with, "As cool as that may be, it could be dangerous. Imagine a full-grown deer attacking you without any protection."

"Oh, and speaking of protection," Cisco adds, "I've got something you're going to need if we're actually going to do this. Because, after all, what are two superheroes without their super suits?" he asks rhetorically, crossing the room to a small room off to the side of the cortex and beckoning for us to follow.

The side room's main feature was a large object covered by a tarp, and once Cisco's got the attention of the room, he yanks the tarp off to reveal a dummy clad in a skintight, dark red, leather suit with a cowl and gas mask.

"I've been working on this little treasure to replace the usual turnouts that firefighters wear," the engineer explains proudly. "I figured that maybe, if STAR Labs designed something good for the community, they wouldn't hate us so much."

"Has it worked?" I ask.

"Not really," he sighs. "Anyway! The suit's made out of a reinforced tri-polymer, specifically designed to survive in temperatures up to seven thousand degrees, which means that it can stand up to the friction that's generated when you're running. And it's got built-in sensors and a GPS so we can keep an eye on you from here."

"And it's aerodynamic," I notice, giving the suit a once-over. "Which means you won't have any drag while running."

Barry nods. "Thanks, Cisco."

"And Ellie," Cisco calls, and I look over, "I've got a suit for you, too – equal opportunity for the lady firefighters and all – but it's not ideal. Because your powers are different, I need to make some modifications to the original schematics, but this should hold up in the meantime."

"Got it," I nod before turning back to the cortex. "Right now, though, do we have anything on Mardon? The sooner we find him, the better."

"I've got an idea that might help with that," Caitlin offers. "I've looked at the footage of all of Mardon's heists since the explosion, and I have a theory: if Mardon uses his powers to the extent of what we saw at the bank earlier, wouldn't they cause a massive, abnormal drop in atmospheric pressure specific to Mardon's location?"

"It would," I realize suddenly. "And if we could track the atmospheric levels over the city, then we could pinpoint the anomalies and find Mardon."

"I'll re-task the STAR Labs satellite," Cisco volunteers, darting back to his workstation. His fingers fly over the keyboard as Barry hovers over his shoulder anxiously.

"Yahtzee!" Cisco shouts after a moment of tense silence. "I'm picking up a low spot – it's at a farm just west of the city."

Barry looks up, and our eyes lock from across the room – this was it.

"Okay then," I whisper breathily. "Let's go kick some ass." Barry speeds off, and I run into the side room. "Cisco, my suit?!"

"Left cabinet, second drawer down!"

I yank open the drawer indicated and grab the bundle of red fabric, shouting my thanks as I race into the nearest bathroom – it would have to do, seeing as there were no phone booths nearby.

It only takes me a moment to change into the suit and zip up. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and pull a face; the suit was far from ideal, but it would do for now. Tearing my gaze away from the mirror, I race out of the bathroom and through the hallways, skidding to a stop in the elevator lobby.

Barry was waiting, and he never looked more like my double than in that moment. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," I shrug as I grab on to my brother and the world blurs in a way that was quickly becoming familiar.

Barry skids to a stop and puts me down gently, and I impatiently wait for the nausea to fade and the world to stop tilting on its axis.

 _Now is not the time to throw up, Ellie,_ I admonish myself. _Keep it together._

"Isn't this where Mardon was hiding out last time?" Barry wonders aloud as I collect myself.

"No idea, but I think we've got bigger problems," I declare, pointing about two hundred yards ahead of us, where a tornado was raging and two figures were crouched behind a police car. "Joe and Eddie. Go!"

Barry doesn't need me to tell him twice – he disappears with a gust of wind, and I take off running towards the commotion. As I ran, I could feel my heart rate increase and the energy thrumming through my veins begin to climb. The same feeling that I had this morning – had it really only been this morning? – wells up inside of my chest and I grab onto it, feeling the electricity in my brain surge.

And just in time, too, as everything seems to happen at once – Barry shoves a piece of tornado debris that was headed straight for Joe out of the way, and Joe uses the opportunity to break cover and raise his gun directly at the tornado…just as Mardon notices him.

" **Joe, get down!"** I shout, my voice echoes across the field. Thankfully, Joe ducks and I skid to a stop in front of the cop car and turn my attention to the growing tornado, the center of which held Mark Mardon himself.

Mardon, unfortunately, notices me. With a wave of his hand, a blast of wind slams into me, tossing me clear over the cop car and into a nearby barn.

Being thrown through the side of a barn was a new feeling, I had to admit. Pain erupted in my entire back, and I was pretty sure I might've sprained something on impact. A small groan escapes my lips as I push a splintered piece of wood off my torso.

" _Ellie, are you good?"_ Cisco's voice asks in my ear.

I jerk upright with a gasp. "Cisco, what the-"

" _Yeah, I forgot to tell you – I installed a multi-link comm unit in both the suits. Are you good? Your vitals spiked for a second."_

"Being tossed like a spare tumbleweed will do that to you," I grunt as I pick myself up and shake myself off. "Barry, can you hear me? How are things looking out there?"

" _It's gotten a little rough,"_ he reports breathlessly.

I climb back through the hole I'd made to find that 'a little rough' was the understatement of the century.

Mardon's tornado had expanded into an absolute monster; it had to be at least a Category 4, with shrieking winds that tossed dirt and debris around like a giant blender. The cop car that Joe and Eddie had arrived in was tipped onto its side, and I could only see one person moving. Through all the chaos, Barry was only a blur of lightning, darting around the center of the disaster in search of any way to get to Mardon himself.

Quickly deciding that he had that under control, I hurry over to the car and kneel next to the prone figure of Eddie Thawne. "Come on, come on," I mutter desperately as I feel for a pulse. "Iris will kill me if you die on my watch. Not that she'd know it's me of course, but still."

It takes a moment, but I eventually find a steady pulse and sit back with a relieved sigh. "Thawne's alive, guys, but he's out cold."

 _"We can't get an ambulance there until Mardon is contained,"_ Caitlin informs us.

" _We need to end this now,"_ Barry pants. _"Before he gets any bigger."_

"Agreed," I nod, standing up and moving over to the overturned police car, hoisting myself up about a foot to see over the top. "But, um, how do we do that?"

Silence falls over the comms, the only other sound being the howling winds accompanied the occasional crash as Mardon's tornado continues to grow.

Barry suddenly appears on the other side of the car, chest heaving. _"What if I unwind it?"_

"Unwind...the tornado?" I ask skeptically. "Do you even you how fast you'd have to run?"

" _700 miles per hour,"_ Caitlin supplies. _"Barry, your body might not be able to handle those speeds."_

Barry, still looking exhausted, looks back at me, at the barn, and then at the tornado before declaring, _"I have to try,"_ and disappearing with a gust of wind.

I watch the streak of lightning encircle the base of the tornado with both growing excitement and a sinking feeling.

"What if he can't do it?" I ask Cisco and Caitlin quietly, but with a frantic edge. "What do I do if he can't do it?"

" _You could talk Mardon down,"_ Cisco offers.

"It's worth a shot," I sigh and try to find the power I'd felt earlier, but all I come up with is fuzzy, white-noise mental static. "It's not working, guys. Guys?!"

" _Ms. Allen, calm down,"_ Dr. Wells suddenly commands. _"You're going into shock. Take a deep breath."_

I suck in a deep breath and then slowly let it out, repeating the process one more time before the panic invading my chest begins to recede. "Now what? My power still isn't working."

There's a slight pause before a sigh sounds on the comms and Wells says, _"Ellie, I was wrong about you earlier. You are not simply someone who happened to get struck by lightning; you are a remarkable young woman with the ability to save this city and right my wrongs. That ability does not hinge on adrenaline - every ounce of this power begins and ends with you. Now, do you want to help your brother or not?"_

"Of course I do," I answer without hesitation.

" _Then you need to close your eyes and focus on your power. Can you do that?"_

I nod, even though he can't see me, and close my eyes, recalling every time I'd used my powers and the way the wave of energy had crashed into me, flooding my system with an indescribable amount of power, completely raw and begging to be harnessed, to be _used_ in some way.

I take a deep breath and visualize that entire feeling as a sphere of energy sitting in my chest. I imagine myself reaching out to grab that energy, pushing it to the surface with every bit of strength I could manage.

My eyes fly open and I inhale sharply as a rush of power suddenly crashes into me, but before I can say anything, a red blur shoots past me and Barry suddenly appears, on his knees and breathing heavily.

"I can't do it!" he gasps. "He's too powerful."

I hop down from the cop car and crouch down next to my brother. "Barry? Bear. **Look at me.** "

Barry's eyes turn silver beneath the cowl as they find mine, and he holds my gaze even after they turn back to green.

"You _can_ do this," I correct him firmly. "You've got this, you hear me? You're smarter and faster than some…" I peer over the top of the car before crouching back down. "Some petty thief with a god complex."

Barry lets out a weak chuckle at that, but he doesn't look entirely convinced. "I can't do this alone."

"If you think I'm letting you have all the fun, you're dead wrong," I scoff. "I'm not letting you do this alone." I open my mouth but pause, suddenly remembering the three other people listening to what I was saying. "Cisco?"

" _Here. Whatcha need?"_

"I need you to turn the comms off. Just for thirty seconds!" I explain as Caitlin and Dr. Wells begin to protest violently. "Thirty seconds, and then you can turn them back on. Please."

There's a long pause of silence before Dr. Wells sighs and says, _"Thirty seconds,"_ and the comms go dead.

"Barry, listen," I sigh, tugging at my collar. "I know…I know we haven't been as close as we used to lately, but if we're actually going to do this, we can't do it alone. We do this together or not at all, yeah?"

"Yeah," Barry nods. "Together."

"Good." I grin and stand up, offering a hand. "Now, let's go kick some punk ass, hm?"

Barry nods just as the comms come back online with a sharp beep.

" _Everyone still alive?"_ Cisco asks lightly.

"We're good," Barry assures him, squaring his shoulders. "I'm going to unwind Mardon's tornado. Once I'm done, Ellie, you take him down."

"Got it," I reply, glancing down at Eddie one last time before I retake my perch on the underside of the police car. I watch with bated breath as a streak of lightning circles the tornado once, twice, three times – and the tornado tears itself apart, dust and debris radiating out from the epicenter like a miniature explosion.

Mardon, now defenseless, is left standing in the middle of an empty field, and to be honest, he doesn't look like anything impressive as he faces Barry.

"I didn't think there was anyone like me," he says, reaching into his pocket for something.

"I'm not like you," Barry counters, both on the farm and through the comms. "You're a murderer."

"Maybe I am," Mardon says, and he brings his hand out of his pocket with a gun primed; he aims it directly at Barry's face, and I lurch into action.

" **Mardon!** " I shout. " **Look at me!** "

The meta-human's eyes blink silver as he turns his attention to me, but the effect of my powers doesn't last long, and my heart skips a beat as Mardon raises the gun at _me_ instead.

But before I can act, a gunshot echoes across the field and Mardon drops to the ground with a pool of red blooming beneath him. I whirl around to see Joe standing a few yards away, gun still raised.

I quickly scramble off my perch and across the field, wrapping Joe in a tight a hug as I could manage. The hug was probably disgusting, as I smelled to high heaven and felt sticky all over – plus the suit was beginning to chafe – but Joe wraps his arms around me anyway.

Barry trudges over and turns the whole affair into a group hug, but the body heat we both emitted eventually became too much to be comfortable and we step apart.

"What you can do…it was the lightning bolt, wasn't it?" Joe asks wearily.

"Sorta," I admit.

Joe lets that settle for a quiet moment before sighing. "I'm sorry. Both of you, I'm sorry. For not believing you about that night. I used to think it was some psychological thing, just two kids protecting themselves, but now…"

I glance back at Mardon's corpse. "Yeah."

"I'll take another look at your mom's case, but I need you two to do something for me," Joe bargains.

"Anything," Barry promises.

"I need you to not tell Iris about what you can do," he requests.

I open my mouth to protest – personally, I was all for immediately keeping Iris in the loop – but Barry beats me to the punch.

"Promise."

I side-eye him, but he silences me with a look. I quickly squash down my annoyance, and it leaves way for only exhaustion – I was wanted food, a shower, and to get this suit off, and not particularly in that order.

I turn to Barry to see the same weariness reflected in his eyes, and my lips curve into a hopeful grin. "Looks like our job is done. Take me back to HQ?"

Barry smiles. "My pleasure."


	8. Gear Up

STAR Labs had locker room showers, more hot water than it knows what to do with, and a bioengineer with a medical degree that, despite her deepest protests, is gracious enough to make a Big Belly Burger run, and I make full use of all of the above.

By the time I was showered, fed, and wearing a set of STAR Labs sweats, the complete exhaustion I had felt earlier had retreated back to a decent level, but I was still too jittery to sleep – I felt like I'd just had a double shot of straight espresso. Going home to an empty apartment didn't seem too inviting either, so I did the next best thing: I grabbed the super suit and looked for Cisco Ramon.

With the help of Dr. Wells and his directions, I end up tracking the other engineer down to his workshop, which was just below the cortex. Cisco doesn't even look up as I step through the doorway, deeply enthralled by whatever he was working on.

I raise a hand to knock on the doorframe a few times. "Can I come in?"

Cisco whips his head up and grins. "Hey, here to return the suit?"

"Yeah, but I've got a few complaints," I admit, running the leathery-feeling fabric between my fingers. "If you don't mind."

"Shoot."

"One, I was sweating like crazy under that and it itches, so if you could look into a water-resistant lining, that'd be great."

Cisco nods and scribbles something down in a notepad.

"Two, it bunched," I continue. "And my hair itched – I don't like the full cowl, do you think we could do just an eye mask or something? Also, red is _not_ my color."

"Noted," Cisco nods, catching the bundle of fabric as I toss it to him. "Your suit's almost done, I just need to add in this stuff and you'll be good to go. Oh, and I was thinking – if you're gonna be a superhero, you need a kick-ass name, like…Hypno-Girl or something."

"I'm not calling myself Hypno-Girl," I laugh as I take a seat on one of the tables after checking it for any sharp, explosive, or otherwise dangerous objects. "That sounds like something a five-year-old could come up with."

"Yeah, well, it's a work in progress," he defends. "I'll come up with something better, wait and see."

I hum noncommittally as I lean over to try and get a better look at what it is that has Cisco so absorbed. "Whatcha doing?"

"Working on a piece of tech for you," he explains. When I try to get a better look, he hunches over and glares at me. "No, no, no, this is a 'do not open until December 25th' type thing."

"Fine." I roll my eyes dramatically. "You ruin all my fun. Speaking of fun, do you have anything I can do while you work on my suit?"

"Sure, do you know how to work on motorcycles?"

"Only since I was a teenager," I scoff.

"Great. I haven't had a chance to start on the bike you talked about since I am only one man – albeit with _superb_ hair – and redesigning a complex tri-polymer ain't exactly easy," he points out. "If you wanna start drawing up the schematics for what you've got planned, you can work over there." He points at a table near the back of the room.

I nod and make my way over to my spot, grabbing some blank blueprints and a pencil. I'd started taking engineering classes in high school, and I hadn't designed much of anything since college – my day job requires more of the physics side of things – but it quickly came back to me, like riding a very complex bike.

Cisco and I continue to trade ideas back and forth for a while, and I found that I liked working alongside him; he was a far from the stuffy, scholarly type as you could get, and I was reminded of some of my more manageable lab partners at Starling City University.

After about an hour and a half of work, I had basic sketches of the wheels and chassis of the bike, but I had hit a snag with the engine – it wasn't going as fast as it needed to, but in order to make it do that, I would need to get my hands on technology that might not even exist yet.

I release a heavy sigh as I rub a hand over my eyes. "Damn it."

"You alright over there?" Cisco asks, looking up from his work.

"Yeah," I sigh. "But I think I'm gonna head home. It's been a bit of a long day." I roll up my plans and tuck them under my arm, reaching for some of the others before I stop. "Is it okay if I take these?"

"What? Oh, sure," Cisco nods as he glances up briefly. "G'night."

"Night," I murmur in response, shuffling down the hallway towards the stairs. My mind was a million miles away, buzzing with schematics and solutions while I made my way down the hall, which was probably why I didn't see Dr. Wells coming and literally tripped over him, landing face-first.

"Oh my god," I gasp as I scramble to my feet, collecting the papers that had gone flying when I fell. "Are you okay? I am so sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going – I really need to work on that."

"It's alright," Dr. Wells assures me with an odd half-smile. "I'm not hurt. Where was your mind just then?"

"Oh, um, Cisco and I are working on something," I explain, shuffling the designs in my hands. "For the superhero…thing. Are we calling it a job? Am I moonlighting right now?"

"Ms. Allen. May I see the plans?"

"Ah, right," I stutter, thumbing through the plans until I find the ones for the motorcycle and hand them over. "Here."

Wells takes them with a nod and looks them over in relative silence, and I anxiously shift my weight from foot to foot while I wait for his verdict, feeling like I was either in court or high school again.

Just as I thought I would explode from pure anxiety, Dr. Wells looks up. "This is excellent work, Ellie."

I nod silently, internally screaming because _the_ Dr. Harrison Wells just complimented my work, which was something I'd dreamed of since I was, like, ten.

"I assume you're attempting to increase the speed of the engine?" he asks, and I nod again.

"If I'm going to be out there with Barry, I need to be as fast as possible," I explain. "I mean, I'm not expecting to go as fast as him, but I can't let Barry get a half-hour head start on everything either."

"Of course not," Wells agrees. "You know, if you were to replace the titanium in the engine with a magnesium alloy, it would lighten the entire structure by 35% while keeping the structural integrity intact."

"Of course," I groan. "I'm an idiot. If the chassis is lighter, it'll increase the available speed exponentially. And given that I'm already using the fastest motor I can get my hands on, an exponential increase is the only logical solution."

Wells nods and begins to move down the hallway, and I fall into step as he continues talking.

"Simple gasoline won't work, of course, but if you were to convert the system to a more efficient fuel…"

"…it would increase the speed on top of the weight problem," I finish, flipping through my schematics to double-check the numbers. "I'll have to do some research later, but this should increase the speed of the bike by 50% overall…" I trail off as the elevator comes into view. "Thank you."

"It's no issue, really; I'm a scientist, Ellie," Wells reminds me. "This is what I do."

I nod and press the elevator button, leaning against the wall as I wait. "Oh, and before I forget, I wanted to apologize if I've come off too harsh since waking up. I know you helped me and Barry while we were out, and I've wanted to meet you just as much as Barry has, but…" I give a half-hearted shrug. "You know what they say about meeting your heroes."

"Absolutely," Wells agrees. "I've suffered a few disappointments in that area myself, so I don't blame you for not trusting me right away. In fact, that skill – that wariness – may serve you well in the future, Ms. Allen. Always remember to be careful who you trust, especially in your new line of work."

"I will," I reply just as the elevator arrives on our floor. "Are you going up, or…?"

"No, no, I have something I need to attend to." Wells backs away, shaking his head. "Have a good night, Ms. Allen."

"You too," I call. The elevator doors slide shut, and I sag against the opposite wall – the exhaustion I'd felt earlier had returned with a vengeance.

Suddenly, my empty apartment didn't feel so bad anymore.

.

Over the course of the next few days, I received a crash-course of sorts in Superhero 101: How to Balance Your Day Job with Your Night Job – A Written Guide.

I was quickly finding that balancing Ellie Allen, CSI, with Ellie Allen, currently unnamed superhero, was harder than it looked; hiding that struggle from people I loved, like Iris and Joe, was nearly impossible. Luckily, Barry and I had developed an impromptu system – whenever one of us was out on patrol or doing anything otherwise superhero-related, the other one would be in charge with covering with the CCPD in general. For instance, the day after fighting Mardon, Barry stopped three muggings and was late to work, so I told Joe that his alarm was broken. When I overstayed my lunch break at STAR Labs to work on my motorcycle, Barry told everyone that the line at Big Belly Burger had been longer than expected.

Don't get me wrong – I hated lying to the Wests, Iris especially, but if this was what Joe wanted, then this is what I would do.

Two days after Clyde Mardon's death found me in the lab, alone, when Joe walked in and immediately asked, "Hey, where's Barry?"

"He's with Iris," I answer without looking up from the analysis I was running. "There's some scientific award ceremony for Stagg Industries at CCU that Iris needs to cover and Barry went along to cover the scientific jargon."

"And you didn't go?" Joe asks, sitting down in Barry's chair. "Sounds right up your alley."

"It is, but they didn't need me," I admit with a shrug. "And I had work to do here. Plus, even I get tired of watching the two of them dance around each other all the time," I add with an eye-roll. "It's sickeningly sweet."

"I know the feeling," Joe chuckles. "I could see that before you did."

"I doubt that," I joke. "I'm Barry's twin, remember? Twin-telepathy and all that."

"Oh, come on," Joe scoffs. "You disproved that when you were ten."

I give a theatric sigh as I finish the analysis, bag and sign the results, and place the case in my 'done' pile. I plop down in my chair and face my foster-father. "Is there a reason you stopped by? Other than to find Barry?"

"No, but while I'm down here, I wanted to talk to you about something."

I lean forward in my seat. "What's up?"

"You've been spending a lot of time over at STAR Labs since you woke up," he begins slowly. "I know you said you were fine, but you're starting to worry me. Are you sure I can't come with you to an appointment or something?"

I shake my head. "I'm fine, I promise. It's less about my appointments anymore, and more because I've made friends over there – they don't get a lot of free time, cleaning up after everything, so I stop by when I can," I explain, the half-truth rolling off my tongue.

"These are friends worth skipping work for?" Joe asks skeptically.

I shrug. "I don't have very many, so…yes? I mean, they saved my life, so…"

"That they did," Joe concedes. "So that's it? You're just making friends?"

I nod.

"Because you had me worried, when I saw what you could do," Joe admits. "I know how much you loved comic books as a kid, but I don't want you getting any big ideas about being a hero of some sort. That kind of vigilantism – it isn't like it is in the movies. Promise me you won't get involved with any of that."

I don't answer right away. I stand up and turn my back to Joe, busily shuffling some case files around before I can muster up the courage to say, "Of course I won't, Joe."

"Good." Barry's chair squeaks as Joe moves around in it, and I turn around to see him standing just to the side of our desks. "Now, how about we go grab some pizza and wait for Barry and Iris to get home? My treat."

"Sure," I grin. "I'm starv-" I'm cut off by the shrill ringing of my cell phone, and I grab it off my desk to see Cisco's grinning face staring up at me. "Or, um, I could take this. Sorry, just gimme a second?"

Joe nods, and I exit the lab and turn a few feet down the hallway before hitting the 'answer' button. "Hey, Cisco, is everything okay?"

" _It's ready,"_ Cisco practically shouts. _"It's finished."_

"What do you – wait," I pause. "What's finished? The bike or the suit?"

" _The suit,"_ he clarifies. _"It's done and it's beautiful. How fast can you be down here?"_

"Uh…" I glance back down the hall at the lab, where Joe was waiting. "Twenty minutes, tops."

" _Great, see you then."_

I bid him goodbye and hang up, making my way back to the lab. "Hey, Joe, I think I'm gonna have to pass on that pizza."

"Everything okay?" Joe asks, eyes tracking me as I gather my jacket and bag.

"Fine, something's just come up with a friend," I explain shortly. "Rain check?"

"Sure," Joe replies slowly, as if he's still not sure what was going on, but I'm already out the door.

The usual twenty-minute walk to STAR Labs only takes me about ten, and I immediately bypass the cortex for the lower-level workshop. "Cisco!"

"In here!" a voice calls from a side room, and I follow it to see the STAR Labs engineer standing proudly in front of a tarp-covered dummy. "You made it."

"Wouldn't miss this for the world," I quip, unable to keep the massive grin off my face. "It's like Christmas, only earlier and more necessary."

Cisco laughs as he grabs the tarp, almost teasing me for a moment before he pulls it off with a grand gesture – and reveals what is possibly the most beautiful piece of technology I'd ever seen.

The suit covering the dummy is snug in a way that reminded me of the Black Widow, from the comics – skintight, but only out of pure practicality. The body of the suit is a light silver color that almost seems to shine in the light, and it's accompanied by a belt that's a darker, matte gray, like the color of steel. But what draws my attention the most was the hood – it strongly reminded me of Oliver's, except for the fact that it was the same color as the belt and draped further down than his did. In the very center of the chest, though, there was a spiral embossed on the fabric, the metallic material glinting brightly.

"I figured it fit," Cisco explains from behind me. "The spiral, I mean. You know how, in all the old cartoons, someone always got spirals in their eyes when they got hypnotized? Like in the Jungle Book, with that one snake – I figured that would fit, but I can always change it…"

"No," I cut him off, taking a few steps forward to run my fingers over the emblem – _my_ emblem. "No, it's perfect, can I go change now?"

"Sure," Cisco confirms with a nod. "The zipper's in the front."

I nod and unzip the suit, pulling it off the mannequin and heading for the nearest bathroom. Once there, I quickly strip out of my work clothes – a blouse and a nicer pair of jeans – and into the suit.

My immediate reaction is that it fits like a glove, and I had to wonder where, exactly, Cisco had gotten my measurements. My second reaction was that the fabric was breathable, and a quick test proved that I could freely move all of my limbs without any bunching or chafing.

That, and a quick glance in the mirror showed that silver was _definitely_ more my color than red was.

Grinning to myself, I snatch up my clothes and make my way out of the bathroom, which led to me discovering a downside: I was only wearing socks. I'd forgotten to get the shoes that went with the suit – if there were any, I was sincerely hoping there were – from Cisco.

I make my way back to the workshop and express this to the engineer as I gingerly step over various pieces of equipment to sit on the edge of a table.

Cisco ducks behind his desk and comes back with a box, setting it down next to me. "Finishing touches," he clarifies, reminding me of the dress designers on some of the shows Iris liked. He pulls out a pair of boots and gloves – both the same dark gray as the hood and belt – a long, thin box, and a smaller box.

I instantly reach for the boots, pulling them on and giving my toes an experimental wiggle. The shoes were comfortable and breathable, just like the rest of the suit; coming up to about mid-calf, they easily conformed to the curve of my leg, not allowing anything to slip between the suit and down my leg. The gloves went on next, and I was extremely pleased to see that they were also snug but in no way inhibited my dexterity.

I hop down off the table and walk around the lab a few times to test the boots out. "Nice work, Cisco."

"Oh girl, you haven't even seen the best part," Cisco quips with an exaggerated southern accent. He opens the larger box. "Boom."

I walk back over to the table and peer into the box, which contained two identical metal rods, each about the length of my forearm and maybe an inch and a half in diameter.

"Pick one up," Cisco prompts.

I tentatively reach out a hand, not entirely certain that I wasn't going to get shocked or stabbed, but the only thing that happens when I pull one of the rods out of the box is a pleasant, warm humming, like a tiny car engine beneath my hand.

"What is it?" I ask curiously, not moving my hand.

"Biometrics. It'll only turn on for you – I figured letting a bad guy getting his – or hers, their? Their hands on these bad boys would be very, very bad."

I narrow my eyes suspiciously. "Why?"

"Flip the switch that's about half an inch from your thumb," Cisco instructs, and I flip my hand to see that there was indeed such a switch.

"I'm starting to get concerned over how well you know my sizes, Cisco. The size of my hands? Really?"

"3D scanning works wonders, dude."

I gape at him for a few seconds before managing, "When the _fuck_ did you-"

"Just flip the damn switch!"

"Fine," I grumble, flipping the switch as instructed. Suddenly, the end of the rod arcs and crackles with electricity, and I immediately drop it with a yelp. "Cisco!"

"They're electric batons," he explains in a rush as I glare daggers across the table. "I mean, I figured you'd want something non-lethal, so I basically gave you some frickin' huge tasers, but I can change it if you want. It's all cool with me."

"This…is fine," I stutter after a moment of consideration, picking the forgotten baton and – gingerly, as if it was a grenade – setting it on the table. "Let's move on to the next box. Is this one going to be sparky too? Or pointy? Shooty?"

"No," he huffs, sliding it across the table. "This one isn't even mine – Barry gave it to me yesterday."

Interest piqued, I reach for the box with more vigor, fairly confident that my brother wouldn't want to cause me any serious harm. Flipping the box open, my eyes fall on something that takes my breath away just as much as – if not more than – the suit did.

Nestled in the dark fabric was a silver mask, just like the one Barry made Oliver. It was made for a slimmer face, obviously, but I knew Barry had made it nonetheless – and I knew that this was his personal contribution to my protection, his two cents, his _"stay safe out there, Ellie."_

I run a thumb over the tiny spiral stitched with silver thread just between the eyes, trying to breathe around the lump forming in my throat and shoving down the tears that were threatening to spill over.

"Uh…Ellie?" I glance up to see Cisco watching me apprehensively, like I was a bomb that was about to explode in his face. "Are you going to cry? Do – can I go get Caitlin if you are?"

"'M not gonna cry," I mumble hoarsely, but I still swipe a thumb over my eyes when Cisco turns his back for a moment before pulling on the mask – it fit perfectly, and I didn't expect any less – and flipping up the hood. "How do I look?"

Cisco turns around, and the expression on his face can only be described as awe-struck – at me or the suit, I didn't know.

"You look like a badass," he laughs once he regains a bit of composure.

"Thank you," I return cheekily. "I can't wait until I can take it all out for a test run. Not that I want there to be crime, obviously," I quickly backpedal, "but what's the point of-"

I'm saved from any further explanation by my cell phone ringing, and I practically leap over the table to pick it up.

"Barry! How's the presentation going?"

" _Ellie!"_ Iris shouts, nearly making me jump out of my skin. _"Thank god, I need you to call Dad because there are men with guns and they're shooting and I can't find Barry!"_

"Wait, Iris, slow down," I command calmly, even as my heart skips a beat. "Who's doing _what_ now?"

" _Men – with ski masks – they had guns and demanded all of our jewelry and shot a security guard-"_

"Okay, are _you_ in any danger right now? And where's Barry?" I tack on, almost as an afterthought, as I realized that Barry should've run in – literally – to save the day by now. Either way, I knew I was going to be there, and I glance up at Cisco and mouth _'shooting'._

A look of panic immediately takes over the other engineer's face, only to be replaced by an urgent expression as he grabs my batons and leaves the room, waving for me to follow. I turn and accompany him into the cortex, all the while listening to Iris explain that Barry had been there one moment and gone the next.

"I'll get help," I assure her. "Help will be there soon, just stay calm."

" _Okay, just find Bar-"_ Iris never finishes the sentence – there's some loud scuffling sounds and some shouting before the line goes dead.

"Iris?" I ask as my heart rate skyrockets. "Iris!"

Nothing. I slam my phone down on the table with a string of colorful swears. " _Cisco-"_

"There are reports of three gunmen shooting up CCU as we speak," he reports hurriedly. "It's only two blocks away – you should be able to run there."

I nod and take off for the stairs, but Cisco stops me in the doorway. "Wait!"

I whip around, fully prepared to bite his head off, but Cisco just holds up my batons. "These stick to magnets in your belt and near your knee. Remember the switch – and take this," he advises, holding out something that looked like a black hearing aid.

I nod quickly and put it on, clipping the batons to my belt before I take off again, running as fast as I could to the scene. It only takes me about five minutes to get there – which was astounding, given my previous track record as far as athletics were concerned.

I skid to a stop in front of the university to find a much calmer scene than I'd expected – the two guards at the door weren't good news, but it could be worse.

" _How's it look?"_ Cisco asks.

"Just two thugs, I got this," I assure him. "Inside may be a different story. Do you have an ETA on the cops?"

" _Five minutes. Any sign of Barry?"_

"Not yet," I whisper as I creep closer to the doors. "I'm hoping he's already inside."

Cisco doesn't say anything, and I take that as a green light. As I get within a reasonable distance of the guards, I duck behind a cement ledge and pull one of the batons from my belt. I switch it on, watching it spark without dropping it this time.

I take a deep breath and look up at the guards; they were about ten feet away. I tighten my hand around the baton and lift it up, squinting at the guard closest to me as I judge my aim. After a moment of tension, I lift the baton – end still sparking – and fling it at the guard's head.

That part of the plan works – the first guard spams and drops like a sack of potatoes. But then things start to go sour: the baton flies off in a random direction, leaving me down a weapon, and the second guard looks up and meets my eyes.

And the, because my situation wasn't already horrible: Guard Number Two shudders and suddenly, there's Guard(s) Number Three, Four, Five, and Six.

" _Shit_ ," I hiss, immediately diving beneath my cover. "Cisco, it's a metahuman."

" _What?"_ he balks. _"What – what is it?"_

"Clones," I groan, peering over the top of the planter box to make sure that yep, there were still _six._ "Six clones, I'm not sure if there's a limit."

" _I suggest you haul ass,"_ Cisco says. _"You can't take on six grown men_ with guns _by yourself."_

"Iris is still in there!" I protest in a whisper-shout. "She's scared and possibly hurt, and Barry might be facing who knows how many more clones inside. I'm not _leaving._ "

There's a long pause before Cisco sighs and resignedly orders me to be careful.

"I'll try," I promise before unhooking the second baton from my belt and feeling it hum to life underneath my hand as I stand up and lunge at the nearest guard.

I have the element of surprise on my side, so Guard One goes down just with a punch to the face and a taser to the neck. Two reaches for his gun, but I stop him with a quick " **Don't do that,** " and whack him around the head. Three reaches for his gun before I can stop him, so I improvise with a messy tackle.

That much works. But then Three gets up before I can and slams his foot into my ribs, and I'm fairly sure I hear something snap. I manage to scramble to my feet just in time to avoid another kick, but then something odd happens – a sudden wave of nausea slams into me from out of nowhere, accompanied by a lightheadedness that made the world spin.

Three takes advantage of my distraction to slam a fist into my fist. I hit the pavement hard, the baton bouncing out of my hand and off to some unknown location. Now weaponless, I start lashing out with my hands and feet – I land a few punches here and there, but Cisco was right; I was no match for four grown men with guns.

Actually, scratch that – _six_ grown men. These things were like rabbits.

 _Violent rabbits,_ a little voice in my head chimes. _Rabbits that want to kill you. Rabbits that are currently beating the shit out of you._

I grimace – partly at that ever-so-helpful revelation, partly because one of the men lands a kick to my head, causing black spots to swarm my vision.

" _Ellie!"_ Cisco shouts in my earpiece. _"Your vitals are all over the place, get out of there now!"_

I open my mouth, but a punch to the stomach knocks the air out of my lungs. I just barely manage to croak out a cry for help before a particularly lucky man lands a kick to the face and the world turns black.


End file.
